Finding Equilibrium
by insightfuldamon
Summary: Elena Gilbert is not in a good place. She's completely isolated herself from her friends and family. She's a teacher at a prestigious private school in Los Angeles, but is not happy with the direction her field is taking. A wealthy and handsome stranger offers her a solution in exchange for her help. Will Elena take him up on his offer? (Delena AU)
1. Chapter 1: Beginning

Author's Note: Hi everyone! This fic is slightly similar to Arms of the Ocean, in that Elena is a runner, Damon is a rich businessman, and the story takes place in California, but it definitely is a different story. Elena is a teacher and unhappy with the direction her life is going and Damon needs her help. The question is, will Elena help this stranger? Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy. I have about 5 chapters already written, so I'll publish chapter 2 soon. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 1: My Beginning

When I was a little girl, the only time I could get my mother's attention was if I hung out in the kitchen while she made dinner. She'd be wearing one of my father's button down t-shirts over leggings, her chestnut hair effortlessly twisted in a french knot, showing off the oversized silver hoops she always wore. She'd add a pinch of brown sugar to the spaghetti sauce while it simmered, turn and look at me with her large hazel eyes and ask me how my day was at school.

I didn't tell her that I received a 30% on a spelling test, or that I got in trouble for racing the upper elementary boys after lunch, instead I asked her questions. I asked her what it was like growing up on a ranch, or moving to Los Angeles after her father died to work at the Ahmenson Theatre. She was so elegant as she told her stories, like having Jackie O stand across from me, telling me about the time she got her hair done next to Goldie Hawn.

Her solution to life's problems was to go for a run. If I had a head ache, or felt sick, she told me to go run a mile. I had to get my blood flowing. That was her logic, and ironically, it always worked. Like magic, I'd feel better once I arrived home. She ran every morning, sometimes nine miles. She never missed a day, even went for a run the morning she gave birth to my younger brother. The doctors thought she was some freak of nature, never yelled or screamed during deliveries. I asked her about it once, and she told me that she just pretended she was at the ocean and let the waves of pain wash over her.

I was never like her. She was kind and easy to be around. She ran marathons, and was committed daily to running in the morning. I ran off and on, late nights and studying were my go to excuses for not getting a run in. She could run without music and I needed it to keep me going. But suddenly, I stopped running. I moved to Los Angeles and I stopped running every morning. I couldn't let the pain wash over me, instead I let it carry me out to sea. I let my pain consume my every being until it pulled me to the depths of it's dark waters, where the surface becomes opaque, not allowing any sunlight to seep through.

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result. Steadily, I was driving myself insane, distracting myself by sabotaging who I was. It was like I was on repeat everyday, and in the evening I'd swear the next day would be different, even though I'd end up down the same path of self destruction I was on the day before.

My brother wanted to send me to rehab and I told him to fuck off. I could solve the problem on my own, without vomiting my pain all over a three hundred dollar an hour therapist. I just had to stop. Stop and find a greater focus.

Gradually, I started finding my way. I made myself wake up every morning and go running, because that's what my mother had told me to do when I had a problem. It was hard, especially when I felt like my head weighed a ton and every orifice wanted to stay in bed.

Saturday morning runs were always the hardest, because I hated being seen. Paranoia hadn't gone away with sobriety and the California sun still gave me a head ache. Waking up to run before work meant I ran in the dark with the moon and stars watching over me. On Saturday mornings, I ran while people were at brunch or getting a late cup of coffee. Normality makes me sick.

When I saw this as a problem earlier on in my program, I started wearing baseball caps. I had several, with long bills to give myself the illusion no one noticed me. Music was essential, and played loudly to block out my own thoughts that people are looking at me because I've destroyed everyone I've ever loved.

With my hat pulled down, I ran down Wilshire, the last half mile of my run. I sensed someone following me, but ignored it, assuming it was either another runner or someone trying to catch the bus. When I reached CVS, I hit the stop on my Apple watch and started walking up the stairs. It was hot and I was drenched in sweat, so I immediately headed for the refrigerator to get a bottle of water, music still blaring in my ears. Unable to help myself, I twist open the cap and start chugging the water right there in the aisle. Sighing in satisfaction, I cap the bottle and walk to the counter to pay for my water, until I feel someone tugging my arm and trying to get my attention.

Completely put off, I spin around to look at who it is. With sweat dripping into my eyes, and Beyonce blaring in my ears, I just see a man wall. Someone very tall standing in my way. Keeping my eyes cast down, I attempt to walk away, down the holiday aisle, full Easter candy, bright green plastic baskets and multi colored eggs, but the Man Wall has hold of my wrist and is trying to get my attention. Resigning to the fact that in order to leave CVS and get home, I'd have to talk to this stranger, I take out my earbuds, tuck them into my back pocket and try to casually wipe the sweat from my face.

I look up, and because this man is so tall, I have no choice but to step back just so I can see him properly. I used to watch old black and white movies on Sundays after church. I'd always wanted to be able to look as graceful and effortless as Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly, completely independent of a man, but desired by all, and I wanted to be desired by someone like Gregory Peck or Paul Newman. Classic Hollywood, and this man wall standing in front of me could've been taken directly from any of the movies I used to watch.

He had deep blue eyes, raven black hair, cut short on the side, but left a little long on top, effortlessly parted to the side, and a strong jaw, with a cleft chin and a little stubble. He was wearing a blue henley that matched his eyes, with the sleeves pushed up showing off his tan arms and grey linen cotton shorts that came to just above his knees. He was completely out of my league, so I felt fully justified taking in the view. The moment he cocked his head to the side, I knew that I was staring too long. His lips quirked up, revealing dimples.

"I'm sorry," I stutter. "Did you want something?"

"Can I take you to breakfast?" he asks.

I look at him questioningly, to see if he's joking. "Why?" I reply.

He smiles, a real teeth showing smile. "I just want to talk to you."

I cannot believe I am having this conversation with _this_ man, in my oversized mens t-shirt and leggings, completely drenched in sweat, in the middle of CVS. "But I don't know you," I reply. He may be an adonis, but I don't feel like being humiliated as a charity case. Maybe he's a casting director for _Intervention_. Does that show have casting directors?

He lifts his hand up to shake mine, which I give him. "My name is Damon Salvatore, you're Elena Gilbert and you teach 4th grade in Hancock Park."

That name sounds familiar, but it doesn't stop me from talking a large step backwards. "How did you know that?"

He just laughs. "You taught my nephew, Benji Salvatore, last year. My brother lives along your running route. She saw me watching you last week, and told me who you are."

Cute little red-headed Benji was his nephew? Huh. He must want me to tutor his kid or something. Most of my spending money comes from tutoring, so it's widely known that I offer my services after school. "Do you need a reading tutor or something?" I ask.

He knocks his head back in a loud laugh, and I realize how it must've sounded coming out. "I can read just fine, Ms. Gilbert I just want to talk to you."

I bite my lip contemplating my choices. I could say no, and do what I usually do on a Saturday, which was watch TV and work, or I could say yes, and spend the next hour finding out what Damon wants, because he must need something.

"Fine, but your going to have to take me as I am, because if I go home and change, you'll probably never see me again," I reply.

This man needs to tell me who his dentist is, because he shows me his teeth again, and I swear I see a cartoon sparkle. "You are a very refreshing person, Ms. Gilbert," he says, taking the water bottle out of my hands, and walking towards the self check out.

I chase after him, trying to get to my water. "I can pay for a bottle of water," I yell after him.

"I'm the one who is interrupting your morning. Please, let me take care of this," he says, while scanning and paying for the water.

After thanking him for the water, he tells me that we're walking to a little place called Le Pain around the corner. Walking with Damon out of CVS and down the street was out of my comfort zone, and I curse myself for agreeing to breakfast. I could be in my pajamas with a mug of coffee and watching Netflix, right now.

"So, how long have you been running?" he asks, as we walk side by side along a residential street.

"Pretty much my whole life, but I got out of the habit a couple of years ago. I've only recently gotten back into it," I reply, skipping over a large crack in the sidewalk.

"You have good form, like you've been doing it for a while."

I turn my head to look at him, completely caught off guard. He said it like he wasn't trying to be nice, but sincerely thought so. "It's cheap exercise," I reply simply. "Do you live around here?" I ask, trying to change the subject.

"I live all over," he replies.

"What kind of answer is that?" I ask, turning my head to look at him.

"We're here," he says, leading the way down a stone path. There's no sign outside the restaurant, which is so L.A. He opens a wooden white door, and bypassing the front desk, he nods to the hostess and takes me past tables full of people enjoying mimosas on a Saturday morning, and to a room in the back. At first, I think he's taking me to an office and that he's going to offer me a job managing or something, but instead he takes me to a private patio with a single table overlooking a garden full of herbs and wild flowers, and a small three tier running fountain in the middle of the patio.

I sit down at the table covered in a blue and white checked table cloth, with a pot of daisies across from Damon. "This is lovely," I say, commenting on the patio. I shift in my chair. It's almost too much, Mr. Completely Out-of-My League is sitting across from me, actually looking at me like I'm a human being.

"I know the owners," he replies. "Do you want a drink? Champagne? A Bloody Mary?"

I look at the menu in front of me. I automatically want alcohol, but I should probably have my head on straight during the conversation I'm about to have. "Coffee's fine," I pause. Between the environment and the niceties, I have to rip the inevitable off like a bandaid, because the past 25 minutes has been slow torture that will only result in rejection. "Why am I here?" I ask.

He sits back, considering me, and I stare right back at him from under the brim of my cap. Taking his time, which is extremely irritating. "Are you sure you don't want a mimosa or something?"

I ignore him. "I'm not some aloof girl. I know that you need something, so out with it."

Damon gets up to leave, slightly irritated. "I'm going to get your coffee," he says.

Great. He's leaving me alone long enough to realize I acted rudely. I pull my phone out of my back pocket. No text messages, but that's to be expected. I check my email and immediately sigh at the 5 new emails from the parents of students in my class. Sometimes my job sucked. There are parents in existence that think because they are paying for a private education, I should be at their beck and call. If their children are unhappy, I hear about it. They want an extension on a book report because the nanny had the night off and little Johnny didn't want to do it on his own.

It's frustrating, but what can be more frustrating, is knowing that sometimes I have little control over how a child does when they have unsupportive parents. It makes me feel powerless, an emotion I don't like. Which is why I need to get out of here.

I pocket my phone and get up, looking around for an exit.

"Going somewhere?" Damon asks, carrying a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee, a small pitcher of cream, and an ornate container with a silver lid and small spoon sticking out of it. I immediately sit down, because the coffee looks really good. He chuckles as he places the mug in front of me.

"I brought coconut milk and the container has vanilla sugar in it," he explains. I grin, because he is speaking my language. Fussy coffee and mixed lattes are nothing short of heaven for me, and one of the few simple pleasures I still will indulge in.

I add some coconut milk and sugar to my coffee, while Damon watches, sipping from his own mug. "I was going to leave," I say.

He shrugs, "Why didn't you?"

I sit back and take my fist sip. It is so completely good, I no longer care what he has to say to me. "Coffee," I state.

"I'll make note of it." He puts a manilla envelope in front of me, that I didn't see when he came in.

I look at it uneasily. "What's this?" It's a job offer. While I taught her son, I became good friends with his sister-in-law. I probably shouldn't have had wine with her and told her I had issues with the administration of the school. So unprofessional, but she caught me on a bad day, and when I drink, I become very chatty.

"I want you to live with me," he says. My mouth practically hits the floor like in a Loony Toon cartoon. Move in with him?

"Are you looking for a live in maid or something?" I ask, pushing the envelope back toward him.

"No, I need someone to live with me," he replies, sliding it back in front of me.

"So, what's this?" I ask, holding up the envelope.

"Information and expectations."

So simple, yet so manipulative. The interference after my run. Politely paying for my water. Always steering the conversation in my direction. Taking me to an angelic courtyard and plying me with heavenly coffee. I spent enough time around my father on the golf course with business associates to know that I was being wooed for something more than what he was telling me.

"So, get a roommate or a girlfriend," I say, taking another sip of coffee.

He looks at me, frustrated. Clearly I was not an easy mark. "I need someone I can trust," he replies, moving his coffee aside and resting his clasped hands on the table, like he's having an internal battle.

"You don't know me at all. You might as well put an ad on Craigslist and do an interview and background check for the applicants. Not only would you get a very willing roomy, but you'd also have a slew of people to choose from."

I could see anger brewing behind those gorgeous blue eyes, as they turn from the deepest blue to a cloudy grey. I glare at him. He may be the most good looking and genetically blessed human being on the planet, but he does not intimidate me. Take away the perfect exterior, and inside you'll find a person struggling to get through life, just like everyone else.

"I can help you," he says through much effort to keep a calm and even voice.

"And what exactly do you think you can help me with?" I ask, but I knew, and I don't think I could bare for him to verbalize it. I had also told his sister that I've been severely unhappy and struggling for the past couple of years. I didn't realize the conversations I'd had while nursing a glass of wine would come back to bite me in the ass.

"I know that you've been struggling with money and you don't like your job," he says carefully. I close my eyes, letting the humiliation wash over me. I was not this person. I was athletic and strong. I'm independent. I ran marathons for Christ's sake, and now I've been reduced to a sad lonely person in severe debt who hates her life. Nope. I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

I get up to leave, but he places a very warm hand on mine to stop me. "You misunderstand me. We can help each other," he says, pleading. Then I see it, the human behind the lavish exterior. Soft baby blue eyes in pain. I know that look only too well, and sit down.

He looks at me, expectantly. "I'm listening," I reply.

Knowing that I won't leave, he takes a breath, and continues. "I can offer you an easy job as my assistant. It pays well and you'll have connections to do whatever you want with your life by the time this is over," he says.

The offer is extremely tempting, but I'd be crazy to take it, because I have no clue what I'm giving him in exchange. "I don't have the luxury of escaping at the moment, I have students and a lease," I state. But the rejection seemed to have only fueled him, because with my words, he knew that I was considering it, and now he was about to go in for the kill.

"It's towards the end of the school year, and I happen to donate a lot of money to my nephew's school. With one phone call, I can talk to your head of school and relieve you of the rest of the year," he says.

I couldn't do that to my students, and what about my job? If I don't finish off the rest of the year, my job will surely be up for grabs, and teachers are a dime a dozen in California. Over 500 people applied for my job alone, and I had to bust my ass to get it.

"I can't," I say.

"Let me ask you this, are you happy?" he says, like some missionary proselytizing the message of Christ on the streets.

I gaze around the garden, wanting to look anywhere but at Damon. I wasn't exactly what you would call happy. I didn't really want to be a teacher in the first place. I like it, and enjoy the students, I have my master's degree in it, but I never felt like it was where I should be, which is exactly what I told Beth, Damon's sister-in-law.

The look on my face must've answered his question. "My younger sister, Abby, was a teacher. She stopped teaching when she had her daughter, but is looking for something to do while she's in pre kindergarten," he pauses, making sure he has my attention. When I look back up at him, he continues. "She's willing to substitute and finish the school year. I'll make sure the position is still yours, unless you decide otherwise."

He pre thought this, came up with a solution to every possible reason for me to say no. "What about my lease?"

"You'll have a place to live," he states.

I shake my head. "I live in a tiny rent controlled apartment in a very nice neighborhood. I leave, they'll jack up the rent."

"You won't let me just find you another one?"

I nod, and he purses his lips, thinking. He didn't think I'd fight this. While his guard is down, I decide to ask him once again what's really going on. "Tell me why you need me to live with you so badly."

He leans on the table, hands rubbing his face, claps them, and looks at me. He's trying to read me. I can feel his eyes penetrate my mind. He knows too much about me to not return the favor and give me any information about himself, and he knows that I won't say yes, unless he can give me a good enough reason to.

"My last name is Salvatore," he says.

"I remember," I reply.

"Cut the sass and I'll tell you." I take a sip of the now cold coffee and wave my hand for him to proceed. His lip quirks up slightly, revealing one of his dimples.

"My last name is Salvatore, as in Salvatore International Properties. We own hotel properties and real estate all over the world. I've been running the company since I earned my MBA from Stanford, and after proving myself, my father stepped down to retire, and I took over. A couple of years ago, my father passed away, leaving me with the majority of shares in the company. I um…" he trailed off thinking. I was familiar with Salvatore Investments. They'd been in the news lately because there were rumors they were merging with Hamilton Industries, making it the largest merger in the last decade.

"I got into some trouble," he says.

"What kind of trouble?"

He moves uneasily in his chair and looks down. "Girls, drugs, parties, lavish trips, girls…"

I interrupt, "You already said that." He smiles, trying to make light of something that I think is serious enough to go to a stranger for help.

"I started developing a reputation. Last week, girls came forward saying that I sexually harassed them in the work place."

I look at him. I may have known him for a couple of hours, but he didn't seem like the type that would sexually harass anyone, mainly because he didn't need to. I'm sure he has a slew of girls willing to do anything for him.

"My lawyers and I were able to discount their accusations, but it brought to light something that's in my contract. Something my father put in there to keep me in line. A morality clause. Essentially, if I engage in immoral activities that become public information or am dishonest in a way that would ruin the company's reputation, I forfeit my shares to the board and step down as CEO," he says.

Suddenly it clicked. He needed me to keep him in line, away from multiple girls and away from parties. Every school year, I get at least one student who's out of control, refuses to do homework, classwork, talks out of turn continually, and is blatantly disrespectful. It's my job to whip them into shape so they're ready for the responsibilities waiting for them in fifth grade. Benji was that student, and it took me and Beth boxing him in and forcing him to do his work. Eventually, he became an amazing student and member of the classroom community. Now, Beth wanted me to do the same for her brother. I was The Teacher, and in no way a temptation to him.

I sit back and laugh, which earns me a wary gaze. "You need a professional disciplinarian," I say. Now he laughs, a barking laughter that lights up his eyes, and makes him look boyish.

"Get your head out of the gutter. I'm sexual Kryptonite. I'm no temptation for you, but I have experience making little boys behave," I pause, not believing what I was about to say. All Damon needed was my help, and in return, he'd give me the time and resources to help me figure my life out. I knew myself, and I used teaching as a distraction. I was living in a stressful environment, and getting away from everything would be heavenly.

"Where do you live?" I ask.

He grins, knowing he has me. "We'd be staying part of the time in my beach home in Malibu, and part of it in my penthouse in Century City."

"So what, I follow you around and make sure you don't get into trouble?" I ask. He slides over the envelope, and for the first time since he placed it before me, I actually seriously consider what's in it.

"The information is in there, along with an agreement that I need you to sign," he says.

"Should I get my lawyer? This sounds a lot like a contract."

"I'm not going to lie, you signing it would protect me. I don't assume you'd ever sue me, but you have to understand if anything happened, I could loose the company my father built," he has those pleading eyes again. "Read it. I'll go get you something to eat."

I nod, and he gets up to leave. I take out the papers. It's thick, but I'm a fast reader. He wasn't lying. It was mainly information and expectations. It was more than just keeping an eye on him.

The agreement was more of a non disclosure agreement. I couldn't sue or sell the information I obtained, or tell anyone. Fine by me. This was so weird, and so much more than a roommate situation, I don't know what I'd say.

Damon comes back with two steaming plates. "I had them make you a mushroom, spinach and goat cheese egg white omelet. It's my favorite," he says placing the plate in front of me. It looks delicious.

"What would people call me? If I'm to accompany you to various functions, won't they want to know who I am?"

He reached over and riffled through the papers, pulling out a sheet that I missed because it was stuck to another. I take a bite of the omelet, and read through the paper. I'd be considered his personal assistant, not affiliated with the company and paid with personal funds. I'd get paid, and generously by the looks of it, with benefits. I looked up at him. "You said you needed someone to live with you. This feels more like a job. A very weird job."

He bobs his head up and down as he chews a piece of toast. He rifles through the papers once more, and pulls out another sheet of paper I missed. I look at it, and read the job description. While he already has one at his office in Century City, I am to manage his personal affairs. Take care of his invitations to charity auctions, movie premiers, dinners with influential people, keep track of his comings and goings, and provide him with consistency so he stays clean. It's not like the information is new, but reading it on paper feels very formal and cold.

"I can't," I say, not looking at him as I get up to leave. He doesn't stop me. I pull my cap down and walk out of the restaurant without a glance back.


	2. Chapter 2: My Real Beginning

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read chapter one. This story is about using something to suppress deep emotion. Damon and Elena both suffer from one side of the same coin, but in Damon fashion, he's unabashedly honest, while Elena isn't quite there yet. I hope that everyone enjoys chapter 2.

Chapter 2: My Real Beginning

I wake up late Monday morning and decide to skip my run, like I did on Sunday. I usually bike to work, but it was 8:15, and school had just started. I was never late, but I had issues getting out of bed, actually I hadn't left bed since 11:47 AM, on Saturday. I text my assistant, tell her to start the morning routine with my class, and quickly shower, throw on a wrinkled shirt dress and scuffed boots. I twist my wet hair in the same bun that it's been in for the last 2 years, and put on some under eye concealer and mascara, so I don't scare the kids.

When my Uber drops me off as school, I use one of the keys I stole from one of my friends who worked in the library, to open the back gate. When I get to the classroom, I see a tall fair woman with raven black hair. At first, I think the school got a sub because I'm an hour late and I'm never late, but something is familiar about that face and blue eyes.

When she sees me at the door, she has my assistant take over, and walks outside. "You must be Elena. I'm Abby. Beth had so many wonderful things to say about you," she says, pulling me into a hug. "We can't thank you enough for what you're doing for the family. And you're so organized. I walked in and all of your files were clearly labeled, including your plans until the end of the year. Marsha's been so great at helping me get settled," she pauses, seeing the completely confused look on my face, her whole demeanor changes. She stands up straighter, puts her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes. "What the F-word did my brother do?"

I laugh at her attempt to swear. "I said that I couldn't do it. Maybe he forgot to tell you?"

"You mean last night when I talked to him?" she replies, arching a brow. "He told me some of what happened, but he told me you agreed to it."

I put my hands in my face. This is a problem. "Look, your students go to art in five minutes. The administration thinks you took leave, so you being here, isn't good for either of us. Why don't you hide in the teacher's bathroom, and I'll get you when the coast is clear."

She turns around to go back to class, and I slip into the bathroom across the hallway. I pull out my phone and see that Marsha texted me, wanting to know why I was coming in. God, what exactly did Damon say? Did he think I'd change my mind? I had thought about it, because I was in a depressed rut, and I honestly think that a complete change in environment would help, but I don't know if I could get myself in a situation that's so personal, yet so formal. While I understood the NDA, the job contract threw me off. I just wasn't sure if I was going from one miserable situation to more of the same.

A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts.

"It's me," Abby whispers. "It's safe to come out."

I couldn't believe I was being reduced to sneaking around my own job.

I slip out and follow Abby back to my classroom. I shut the door behind me, lock the inner top lock, and shut off the lights.

"I got rid of Marsha, and told her to stay in art with the students," she says.

"Smart thinking, one would think you've done this before," I reply.

Abby grins. "It's been four years, but being back with the kids feels so good," she pauses. "I'll of course understand if you want to teach again. I had no idea you said no."

I sit down on one of the desks in the back corner, so no one could see us talking through the window. Abby sits across from me, and even though she's sitting on a desk, she's able to do it with more elegance than I ever could. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and takes a deep breath.

"My parents were high school sweet hearts. They got married right out of high school, at the age of 18. My mom had Damon when she was just 19. She was….ethereal. Tall and willowy with blonde hair that none of us inherited. She had these freckles on the bridge of her nose that Damon loved to trace with his fingers. She was his everything, and he was such a little mama's boy, we used to tease him," she paused as if picturing a young Damon sitting on his mother's lap.

"She passed away when Damon was just 13. Car accident. It was sudden and no one's fault, really. It was rainy and the car hydroplaned into a tree."

I close my eyes, and try to let the pain wash over me. "I'm so sorry," I whisper, my voice coming out softer than I intended.

"Thank you," Abby says, putting her hand in mine reassuringly. "After the accident, my father was never the same. He became cold and closed off, especially to Damon. He put Damon in an extremely rigorous private school, and had him picked up from school and taken to his office in the afternoons. My father built his company at the age of 19, using money he inherited after his aunt passed. I think the only way he could connect with Damon was through work, so he made sure Damon knew everything about it, and Damon does. He knows the business inside and out, and worked hard for it," Abby swallows, moving her hand away from mine, casually rubbing the deep blue gel polish on her nails.

"You know my brother Stefan. He was so much like my father that my dad never worried about him. Stefan was a star football player, went to a different school than Damon and is much younger than him. Like my father, Stefan got married at nineteen to Beth, works his dream job as a sportscaster for Fox, had a couple of kids and moved close by," she pauses.

"Two years ago, he passed away. Damon…," Abby trails off, collecting her thoughts. "Damon spiraled. Beth thinks he's doing everything he should've been doing when he was a teenager, but I think it's a little more than that, I think he doesn't know how to cope," she shakes her head. "Anyways, I don't mean to put this on you. Beth trusts you, so she brought your name up to Damon. I had no idea he'd make you sign a Non Disclosure."

"It was an interesting morning. But I am truly sorry for what your family is going through," I say.

Abby smiles. "I just wanted you to have some idea as to why Damon is the way he is, even if I can't fully explain it myself."

Our conversation is interrupted by Abby's phone. She picks it up, and I awkwardly sit as she steps away to concentrate on the conversation. "You haven't?….." Abby turns to face me. "I'm with Elena right now." "No, I can't leave, it's more complicated than that." "Fine, I'll see." Abby ends the phone call and looks at me with a panicked expression.

"What do you need me to do?" I ask, knowing she's sincerely desperate.

"Can you go check on Damon? I wouldn't ask you, unless it was an absolute emergency, but no one has actually seen him since Saturday, and he skipped out on a charity golf tournament, Sunday. Beth's nursing Brooklyn and I would go except…"

"You're subbing for me, and if the school sees me, I might be out of a job for going on leave under false pretenses," I finish. "And if anyone sees Damon in a bad state, he might lose the company. I'll go. I'm going to walk down the block and get an Uber. Text me the address."

Abby gives me a hug. "Thank you," she says in my hair. I hop off the desk, give Abby a little wave, and dart out, slipping out the back gate, hopefully undetected.

Abby texts me an address in Century City, and I enter in the information into an Uber request, and drop the pin for a couple blocks away from the school. When I reach my destination, I stand awkwardly in front of a closed Thai place while I wait. A red Toyota Prius arrives and I hop in, placing ear buds in my ears to signal to the driver that I do not care to have a polite conversation. Small talk is the worst, and small talk with someone who just cares about how many stars you'll give them is even more aggravating.

The instrumental music blaring through my ears isn't distracting me as we zoom past the street light display at LACMA. What kind of condition was Damon going to be in? Moreover, why did I volunteer to check on him? I don't have a key to his apartment. I could very well be left in the lobby like an idiot, trying to get ahold of him.

This wasn't going to change my mind. The information Abby told me gave me insight, but almost made me more wary of living with him because he was unstable. Then again, it seems like Abby's settled into my job effortlessly, and it'd be nice to not have to go back. God, does that make me a horrible person, to want to leave before the end of the school year?

After driving for close to a half hour, the driver pulled in front of a tall building. A valet in a black three piece suit and a black tie opens the door for me. I thank the driver, and walk out. The young man asks me who I am and who I'm visiting. When I say Damon Salvatore, he guides me to a reception desk at the other side of an immaculate lobby. I feel more like I'm checking into the Four Seasons, than making sure a young billionaire is still alive. When the valet tells the man in reception who I'm visiting, he smiles, causing his neatly combed mustache to twitch and directs his attention to me, then consults his computer. I take a deep breath.

"Ms. Gilbert, welcome to Century Court Plaza. My name is Jamison Philips. I'm the manager of this building. You're on Mr. Salvatore's list of visitors. Patrick will show you to the elevator. Please don't hesitate to ask for anything, should you need it, " he says. I nod in acknowledgment because I'm at a loss for words. They were expecting me? Did Damon and his sister plan this? Abby was so sincere, I have a hard time believing I was conned. Damon didn't tell Abby I wasn't doing this. Damon somehow got me here, and I came willingly. If he isn't passed out drunk in his own vomit, I'm going to kick his tight ass.

Patrick walks with me to the elevator, puts in a key card and presses the button for up. "This is a private elevator for the penthouse suite," he says, like it's the coolest thing in the world. "Every penthouse has private access through the elevator and an additional entrance through their front room, but Mr. Salvatore gave you unlimited access through the elevator," he pauses while we wait for the car. "Are you his personal assistant?" he asks.

I shoot him a look. Of course he thinks I'm just a personal assistant. Obviously someone like me couldn't possibly be given unlimited access to a penthouse suite unless I was a subservient.

Luckily, the elevator car arrives. Catching my lack of response as a hint, he doesn't press. Instead, he courteously smiles as I walk inside, slides another access card into a slot and presses P1. I thank Patrick as he steps out of the car. The car begins it's climb, and I feel my stomach drop. I shake my hands, nerves getting the better of me. I concentrate on the marble flooring of the elevator, and lean back against the metal railing that surrounds the car. For a moment, I'm tempted to sit down and put my head in my hands. I can't concentrate, and my breathing becomes shallow. Fuck. It's happening. I continue to concentrate on the floor. Even though the car is empty, it feels like the mahogany walls are closing in. I continue to concentrate on the floor.

I take a deep breath in. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you," I breath out slowly. "If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you," I take another deep breath in. "But make allowances for their doubting too," I breath out.

My breathing begins to be even again, just as the door opens. I practically sprint out of the elevator into the foyer. The same marbling from the elevator continues into the entry way, and I slip slightly on something. I look down to see orange brown chunks mixed with a yellowish liquid on the floor. It's all over the bottom of my boots. "Fuuuuck!" I squeal in disgust.

I attempt to walk out of the vomit, but when I do, my feet meet beer cans and bottles of cheap rum and bourbon that line the hallway, along with several used joints.

The entry way opens up to a living area where I'm guessing most of the party took place. My eyes follow the mess to an open sliding glass door that leads out into a large deck with lawn chairs strewn about around a pool. Upon further inspection, it seems that there's a lawn chair floating in the pool, along with more beer cans. Glass from a broken bong is scattered all over the deck, and what looks like dried up spots of blood. Gross.

I walk back inside, through a door and into a kitchen. The kitchen is modern and surprisingly the cleanest room I've seen in the penthouse, which makes me think that Damon's been living on a diet of booze and pot since breakfast on Saturday. It has a silver refrigerator with a touchscreen component, displaying the day's weather. Out of curiosity, I touch the screen, and it displays a list of contents inside the fridge. Another touch to the screen reveals a list of apps, including Netflix, Amazon, a recipe search and Instacart's ordering service.

There's a gas range, a double oven, wine cooler, a Keurig, and one of those weird drawer dish washing machines. Before I can further explore the kitchen, I hear a noise.

I walk out into the hallway and see a tall naked girl run out of a room and into what I'm guessing is a bathroom. I dig into my purse and pull out a few twenties.

Kicking a beer can away, I lean against the wall, waiting. After a few minutes, I hear a toilet flush, and hear her open the door. She sees me, rubs her eyes, moves a piece of blonde hair out of her face, and opens them again. I wait for her to have to mental cognition to have a logical conversation.

I focus my eyes on her face and not her slender and perfect body. "Here's some money for a cab. Grab your things and go," I say, putting my money into her hand and closing it into a fist.

She looks from the money to me and back to the money. "I'm not a whore you can just pay off! Paul McCartney loves me, we have a connection," she says, not caring that she's butt naked in front of a stranger.

I try not to laugh at the name Damon gave her, and decide to take a different tactic. "I'm Paul's manager, and it's for your own safety that you go. He has millions of fans in Europe, and if your name got out," I shake my head in horror. "People all over would hate the girl Paul fell in love with, and took him away from his music."

She considers me. "What band is he in?"

"The Beats," I say, not missing a beat. "His fans are known to be pretty brutal. You should've seen the manipulated photos they did of his last girlfriend. She cried over them every night. Almost committed suicide over it, until they hauled her away to a mental institution. Paul still visits Yoko, but she's never been the same."

Naked girl nods her head, and crumples the money in her hand. "I understand. I'll go," she says solemnly.

She heads to the room, and quickly comes back out, slipping on a metallic silver dress over a neon green thong. She tries to run her through her tangled freshly fucked hair, and grabs her shoes, scattered in the living room. Once she puts them on, she turns to me. "Tell Paul, I'll never forget him, and I won't say a word to anyone," she says, with tears in her eyes.

I walk to her, and gently rub her shoulder reassuringly. "He'll really appreciate that," I say while opening the front door. "Thank you."

Naked girl walks out, stumbling down the hall. "The coast is clear," I yell, after shutting the door.

Damon walks out, and looks like shit. His face is puffy and swollen, his hair is disheveled, and though he has an amazing thing going on in the ab region, his skin is pasty like he hasn't drunk water or taken a shower in days. He yawns, rubbing his eyes.

"How did you come up with that story so quickly?" he asks between yawns, causing his boxer shorts to ever so slightly drop. I try not to stare at his V, which until this point I had thought was an urban myth.

"I was very cool in high school and happen to be the founding member of an improv club," I say, walking to the kitchen. He follows me, chuckling as I go into his fridge and grab him a bottle of water. He sits behind the counter on a barstool, catching the water I throw to him. I turn on the Keurig and add an a bottle of water to the machine.

"You're feeling very at home," he says, as I work my way around the kitchen, getting out a pan to make eggs and turning on the toaster oven.

"You're very hungover, and until you're not, we can't have a rational conversation," I say, opening the fridge and pulling out eggs, butter and cheese. Thankfully he has a stocked fridge, after walking though a trashed entry way, I wasn't sure. Once the Keurig is ready, I pop in a dark roast coffee pod and place a blue mug underneath.

"You need to text your sisters and tell them that you're okay. They're worried about you," I say, handing him a mug of coffee. He takes the mug with him as he shuffles to the bedroom. I continue to make eggs and toast while he's gone.

When he comes back, he's freshly showered, and dressed in a white shirt and grey sweats. I make a plate for him and slide it across the counter, along with a fresh mug of coffee. While he silently takes his first bites, I clean up the kitchen. "You don't have to do that," he says. "I have someone coming in a couple hours to do a deep cleaning of the penthouse." I drop the pan I was scrubbing and taking off my gloves throw them in the sink. Anger courses through me.

I spin around. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" I ask. Before he can respond, I continue. "You think that you can just disappear for a couple days, go on a bender, and have someone else clean up your mess? Your sisters, who happen to love you, were worried sick about you. You have all the money in the world, and you choose to waste it on cheap booze and cheap girls. You could do so much good, and yet you're throwing everything away to feed an addiction."

He glowers at me. Apparently, I hit a sore spot. Well good. He needs to hear this. "You don't need me. You need rehab and a good therapist," I yell, immediately feeling like the world's biggest hypocrite.

He pushes his seat back and stands up, walking toward me. "You must think you're so great," he says. "Wow, Ms. Gilbert great teacher!" he adds in mock sarcasm.

"You and I are not that different. My sisters told me about you. They said you used to be this little dynamo. Ran marathons, taught snow boarding lessons in the winter, and mountain biking in the summer. You were once up for teacher of the year," he adds, and I know where he's going with this. I make to leave, but he blocks my path, causing me to step back. "Then in just two years time, you waste away, a shadow of your former self."

I feel my eyes tingle and then water up. Does he know? No, there's no way, no one except my family knows. But maybe I'm transparent to other addicts. Fuck. I should've never come. "You became this depressed and sad teacher that everyone avoids," he adds. "You have no friends and are completely alone. I might use drugs, alcohol and girls to mask my pain, but you use complete isolation."

He doesn't know, but that's it. I break. Before he sees me cry, I dodge his attempt to block me as I run for the elevator. "Wait, Elena!" he yells.

I press the button for the elevator, and when it doesn't come right away. I run towards the door, forgetting it was there, and leave. I take the stairs and run down the 20 flights, completely out of breath when I hit the bottom. When I open the door, I see Damon there, waiting for me. He grabs my arm, but I push him away. "Get away from me," I yell.

"I'm sorry," he says, running his hands through his hair. I turn around and walk outside, ignoring his apology. He follows me. Fine, he can follow me all he wants. I can ignore him while I wait for an Uber. I stand at the curb in front of the complex, past the valet. He continues to talk. "I shouldn't have said those things in that way, but I don't regret saying them," he says.

What the fuck sort of apology is this? "You needed to hear it, and I'm guessing everyone around you is afraid to say those things, or anyone that would, you've completely cut out of your life," he adds.

I take out my phone to get an Uber, but my hands are so shaky from everything that's happened this morning and the sprint down the flight of stairs, that I drop it, just as a biker comes by and runs over it. Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck. I bend down to pick up what's left of my phone, and in complete frustration, throw it into the street. I sit down on the curb and cry.

Damon sits next to me, and after a few minutes of sobbing, he places an arm around me, and I let him.

XXXXX

Damon takes me to the Apple store at the Century City Mall to buy a phone because he says he's the reason I broke my old phone in the first place. I let him, because it was his fault. We had to stay out of his penthouse anyway because it needed to be severely cleaned and disinfected before I will step foot back in it. He agreed.

After I'm set up with a new phone, he takes me for frozen yogurt at Yogurtland. I get the coconut mixed with cheesecake and put strawberries and bananas on top. Like a little kid, Damon gets everything and tops his yogurt with gummy bears and Oreos. I'm disgusted, but it makes me laugh for the first time all day.

We sit down at a table directly in the sun. It feels good on my skin, as I take small bites of the cold treat. "I think if there were a zombie apocalypse, this would be the first place I'd come."

Damon leans back, takes a bite of his yogurt twisting the spoon upside down before sticking it back in his cup, and shrugs his shoulders. "Why?"

I roll my eyes. "You could take shelter in the theatre. Popcorn and fake butter have a long shelf life, plus you could watch movies all day in your own private theatre," I pause, taking another bite. "I'd have to clear a path to YogurtLand too."

Damon shakes his head. "You'd have to watch the same movies over and over because it's the apocalypse and no one's making movies anymore. Plus, there'd be no power."

He doesn't think that I've thought this through, but I have. "The mall runs on it's own generators and it has extra power because of construction," I reply, pointing to the steel beams and construction workers. "And plenty of weaponry."

"My penthouse has a private theatre and is high up," he retorts.

I try not to look too impressed that he has his own private theatre. "So eventually you'll be stuck without power, resources and surrounded by walkers and I'll be chilling out with popcorn and a nail gun, in my own private screening of Captain America: The Age of…. whatever."

"My yacht and my private island would be pretty safe," he says casually, as if we're talking about buying a shirt from The Gap.

"You can't buy your safety," I feel my voice rising. "You'd have to get to your yacht safely and that's if it's not stolen by people who live closer to the water. Plus, I think inflated ego attracts walkers. You'd be dead before you reached Santa Monica Boulevard."

He shakes his head, finishing his yogurt. "So, have you decided?" he says.

"Decided what?" I ask, completely thrown off by his change of subject.

"Are you going to work for me?" I knew that we couldn't avoid the subject for forever.

"You mean babysit you?" I reply.

Surprisingly, he nods. "Among other things," he says.

"Do you really think I'll be able to stop you from sleeping with random girls, drinking and partying?" I ask, because I really don't know if I can do it. This guy infuriates me so much, I see it more likely we kill each other before he loses his company.

He places his empty cup on the table and looks at me. "I've seen doctors, and I can't go to rehab. I'd risk exposure and I have to work. Skipping the charity golf tournament was a huge setback and rose suspicion," he takes a deep breath, and I know that he doesn't want to have this conversation. "I need help, Elena, and I will never forgive myself if I lose my father's company."

I look into his eyes. His cool blue eyes scream desperation. What's irritating, is that he was right about everything he said earlier. I needed this too. "Fine, I'll do it. Your sister is already so comfortable in my teaching position, I'd hate to take it away from her."

Relief swims over his expression. I don't know what I just got myself into, but it's something different, and I needed a change.


	3. Chapter 3: Rough Beginning

Chapter 3: Rough Beginning

Damon won't let me go back to my apartment. "You might change your mind," he says seriously, while we're in his black Porsche Cayenne.

"Look, I know I said that before, but that was because you wanted to take me to breakfast," I pause, trying to think of a different approach. "I have to grab my things."

"I'll buy you everything else you need," he says rationally.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. "You don't understand. My computer is at home, along with my make up, my iPad, and a whole wardrobe. My shoes," I plead.

Damon shrugs. "If you remember, I was going to buy you everything new anyways. You already have a new phone," he pauses and looks at me. "You're helping me out, so let me do this for you."

I look at him like he's crazy. The car is still in the Century City Mall parking lot. Damon completely turns towards me, and takes off his aviator sunglasses. "I don't think you understand what this job entails. You're pretty much going to be doing 24 hour surveillance, and I need to pay you accordingly. Including overtime. This morning alone you Ubered over here from across town, got rid of my night guest and my hangover. I owe you."

Night guest? Those are some choice words, but he's wearing me down. I can feel it and he sees it in my countenance. "Good," he says, taking my lack of response as an affirmation. "You have a doctor's appointment."

Wait, what? "I'm out. Never mind. We're done here," I say, trying to get out of the car. It's locked. I try to unlock it, but Damon just presses the automatic lock on his side.

"You have to go to a doctor," he says. "It's one of the requirements for all of my employees. If you don't go, it'll look suspicious in your files."

Oh my god this was not happening. "I have my own doctor," I say.

Damon shakes his head. "This is the best doctor in Los Angeles. My sisters go to her, and swear by her," he says. I cross my arms. No fucking way was I going to some doctor. I'm fine. "Scarlett Johansson goes to her," he adds.

I uncross my arms and push him. We had a Marvel versus DC argument earlier and I went on a lack of female representation in Marvel movies tangent. "She deserves her own movie!" I yell. He shakes his head. "Fine. I'll go, if you go," I tell him.

"I don't need to see a doctor," he says.

"Ummm….after the weekend you had, you should, at the very least, take a bath in bleach," I say. "Besides, I think Mrs. Paul McCartney was carrying more than an undying love for you."

Damon rolls his eyes. "God, fine. I'll go too," he says. "But after that, we're getting you clothes and your hair needs to be cut."

I feel like I've hit a new low, so I put my head in my hands and scream. "This feels like a very wrong version of Pretty Woman," I say into my hands.

"Last I checked, you weren't a prostitute. Otherwise, I'd be in trouble," he replies.

I actually laugh. I laugh so hard I keel over and for some reason, I can't stop. "Yeah," Damon says, concerned. "We really need to get you to a doctor."

XXXXXX

I'm sitting in the waiting room alone reading a Redbook magazine. I'm unable to concentrate on the article about, "7 Sexy Things Couples Do But Don't Tell". Damon was able to get a last minute appointment at his doctor's for the same time, so we wouldn't have to wait for each other. I think the fact that there's an entire wing of the hospital named after his father helped him get the appointments.

I asked him why he didn't have to go to work today, and he told me that he has a phone conference later with someone in Korea, and that because of the time difference, a lot of his conferences are either later on in the afternoon or early in the morning. "It's why I live across the street from my building," he said.

I hear my name called and am guided to a room where I'm instructed to change into a paper gown. After changing, I sit on a lined examination table and wait. I stare at a diagram of what a baby looks like at each stage of pregnancy. Looking at things like that always make me feel like I might be pregnant. Like every time I see a commercial for a pregnancy test, I think I might be with child, even though unless I was visited by an angel and there was some immaculate conception going on, it wouldn't be possible.

A nurse comes in, measures me, and asks me to stand on a scale. I can't help but look at the number. It's bad. It's really bad. I'm too thin. I had been avoiding scales for the past two years, and this is what I get. Reality. Sad thing is, it's not nearly as bad as it most likely was a month ago, before I started running again and trying to eat healthier. I feel the tears coming, and seeing the pained look on my face, the nurse rubs my shoulder. "It's okay," she says. "Doctor Fanaei will give you some advice."

She continues to take my blood pressure, and draws a sample of blood, which is surprisingly painless. After sitting on the table again, the doctor comes in. She's tall and stunning, and has kind brown eyes. She has a beautiful accent and tells me she's from Iran. Her chestnut hair is tied in a french knot.

"Hello Elena, I'm Dr. Fanaei. We're going to do a full examination and blood work up today, but first I need to ask you some questions," she says, holding an iPad.

I nod, suddenly nervous. "Do you use tobacco, alcohol or other drugs?"

"I drink occasionally, but not often," I say. Should I lie? I've been off drugs for three months, so my tests should come back clean. But there's something about her that makes me feel like I should be honest. No wonder ScarJo goes to her.

"I was taking prescription medication a few months ago," I reply. There, I was honest. Not completely, but enough.

She looks up at me, clearly not buying it. "What were you taking?"

My eyes shift to the poster with the pregnant belly. "A daily combination of Valium, Klonopin, Demerol and Adderall."

I miss it. When I first went off of it, I had to take a week off work just to get through withdraws, but it's like the desire never left. The routine is still ingrained in me.

"How did you get the medications?" The doctor doesn't even bother asking if I was prescribed or why I was taking them. She's good.

"Doctor patient confidentiality?" I ask.

She narrows her eyes. I doubt she encountered similar problems with ScarJo. "Of course."

"Even between other doctors?"

She puts down her iPad. "Yes."

I'm pretty sure I'll be arrested for saying what I have to say, but I decide to confess. Something about her warm demeanor makes me trust her. "My father's a doctor. I had access to his prescription pad and I'm good at forging his signature."

"When was the last time you used?" she asks.

I cringe. I hate that term: used. It makes me feel like a drug addict, which I'm not since I haven't taken them in three months and they're legal. "I've not taken anything stronger than Advil in three months."

"I'm going to recommend a therapist," she picks up her iPad and makes a note. "She specializes in addiction and she's close to where you live."

"I'm not addicted," I tell her. "I was just going through a phase that has successfully ended."

She glances at me disbelievingly. "I emailed you her contact information. When you're ready, give her a call."

She writes something else in the iPad and continues. "When was your last period?"

"A week ago," I reply.

"How long does your period last?" My cheeks redden.

"A couple of days," I squeak.

"What is your family's medical history?" she asks, looking at me.

"Can't I just fill out a form? Do I really need to sit here and answer these questions?"

Dr. Fanaei smiles, warmly. "We'd usually get this information from your former doctor, but since you haven't been to see one since you were twelve, we have to start from scratch."

I nod, makes sense. I hated going to the doctor, even though my father was one. He never made me go. I guess he figured if anything bad happened, he'd be right there. "As far as I know, there aren't any diseases or cancers that run in my family. On my mother's side, my grandfather died because he had kidney problems and my grandmother died at the age of 96, and on my father's side, my grandfather died of consumption and my grandmother died of natural causes."

The doctor makes some notes on my file while I sit awkwardly. I wish I was asked these questions fully clothed. "And what about your parents," she asks. "You marked deceased on the forms."

I suck in breath. "My mother died and my father lives in San Diego."

She gives me the usual look of sympathy that makes me cringe, and continues to make notes.

"Are you sexually active?" she asks.

"Nope," I say.

"Are you on any sort of birth control?" she asks.

"Nope," I reply.

"Would you like a prescription?" she adds.

I can't see why I would need one anytime soon. "I think I'm okay," I say.

"If you change your mind, just call the office and set up an appointment so we can talk about your options," she says.

I just want this appointment to be over as soon as possible. I tell her that I understand and she explains that she's going to start the various examination, but she will explain everything she's doing when she does it, so I feel more comfortable and have a better understanding of what she's looking at. Honestly, I'm okay with not knowing.

After a painful half hour of being touched more than I ever have in my entire life, she tells me the exam is complete, so I can change and meet her in her office. I slip on my dress and pull on the boots I picked out this morning, which feels like weeks ago. I tentatively knock on the door to her office, and she says that I can come in. Like the rest of the office, everything is white, except for a few navy accent pillows on a white couch. I sit on a chair opposite her desk. Her desk is extremely clean, and only has a laptop on it, along with a silver cup filled with pens, and my file. She opens it and glances through my results, which had just come in. When she's done, she looks at me and smiles warmly.

"Your results came back clean, but you are underweight. I'm giving you the name and number of a nutritionist that can help you incorporate healthier foods in your diet and gain weight safely," she hands me the card.

I take the card, thinking about something that was bothering me. "Can I ask you a silly question?"

"Of course, dear. That's what I'm here for. There are no silly questions."

"I wasn't always like this," I say, pointing to my body. "If my results came clean, than I what I did didn't adversely affect my health?"

"I don't want to say that what you did to your body didn't have any negative effects. You did put yourself physically at risk, but I'm more concerned about your mental stability. You've been clean for a few months, but without support, you may find it easier to go back to old habits. You need to talk to someone who can get you to address the _why."_

She hands me the business cards of a therapist and a nutritionist in Beverly Hills. She has now emailed me and given me the card of a therapist. Message received. I put the cards in my purse, knowing I'll never make an appointment with either of them. I know how to eat healthfully and there's no way in hell that I was going to talk to someone about my sad life. Nope. No thank you. I'd rather have Dr. Fanaei examine my cervix with an ice cold speculum for another hour.

I thank Dr. Fanaei and walk out into the waiting room, where Damon is sitting in a chair in the middle of two very pregnant women looking very uncomfortable. He sees me and stands up.

"Jesus that took forever. Did they have to abort an alien baby out of you or something?" he says, a little too loudly, drawing glares from the women he sat next to.

I punch him in the arm. "No, when the doctor found out that I stepped foot in your apartment, I had to be thoroughly checked for every venereal disease in existence," I say, as we walk out of the office.

We walk out of the office, onto Wilshire and Damon puts his sunglasses on to block his eyes from the light. I didn't bring mine, so I'm using my hand to shield my eyes from the afternoon sun. Noticing this, Damon takes off his sunglasses and hands them to me. I push them out of the way. "You have to drive. We need your vision perfect to get us back to your apartment in one piece," I say.

Damon puts his sunglasses on, grabs my wrist and pulls me down the street to shops along North Beverly. "You need Ray Bans," he says, dragging me into a Sunglass Hut. Literally five minutes later, Damon buys me a pair of Aviators and Wayfarers that he picked out, and himself another pair of Aviators because he was shocked he didn't have another pair for his car.

While we're on North Beverly, Damon decides to drag me next door to Lululemon. "I didn't take you for a shopper," I yell after him.

Damon takes off his new sunglasses and winks at me. "You forget I have a sister," he says, opening the door. "I had to be in order to spend any time with her. I'm also very skilled at brunch and can rock it at a Zumba class."

I laugh as he grabs a basket. I can feel people stare at us as Damon throws tops of every color in the basket. Surprisingly, he knows my size, something I try not to think too hard about. He holds up a pair of leggings with reflective technology, meant for running at night and looks at me. "Do you think you'll be running in the dark?" he asks. I shrug. "I better get you these just in case."

He grabs the matching cap, jacket and sleeveless top. There's no way I'll get hit by a car in that outfit. I'll be able to direct plane traffic in it. A petit blonde in yoga pants and a pink loose tank top with a bra inlet that shows off her toned frame, bypasses me and walks up to Damon. Her ponytail bounces as she sweetly asks him to get her a similar tank top that he just pulled for me in an XXS. Honestly, who came up with the size XXS? It makes anyone who's any larger than an XXS feel extra extra small. I think I'm like a sub-XXS right now, like a XXXXS but I aspire to be just a small. This girl is waving her size around and bragging about it like it's an accomplishment.

Damon looks down at her, his blue eyes twinkling mischievously. I know that look. Once upon a time, long long ago, I got that look. I start to walk away, so I can let him do his thing and get her number, when I remember that I'm supposed to be sexual Kryptonite. So, instead I grab an actual Lululemon store clerk and take her to where Damon is standing with Ms. Ponytail. "I think this little girl needs help finding her size," I say to the clerk and Ponytail.

Ponytail glares at me while the clerk helps her. Damon looks miffed but unaffected. Cockblock Success! This was going to be more work than I thought. I need to make a mental note to talk to Damon about my expectations, because at this rate, I'll never be able to leave his side.

A half hour later, Damon has bought me an entire work out wardrobe and then some. Something I told him was unnecessary, but he insisted. I leave the store carrying nothing, because Damon wanted to carry the bags, and we head towards a Yojisan Sushi. We're seated right away in the small restaurant and I let Damon order for me because other than getting a spicy tuna roll at the store, I was new to the experience. The waiter comes by and when Damon orders in perfect Japanese, I hear the word "sake". I pause. I know what that is! I stop the waiter. "No sake," I say. Damon glares at me.

"No sake?" the waiter replies.

I shake my head. "No sake. Two Iced Oolong teas, please."

I look over at Damon and he looks like he wants to kill me. Part of me does feel guilty because he just bought me all these clothes and new sunglasses, but this is what he technically hired me to do.

"I can drink in moderation," he hisses after the waiter leaves.

I laugh. "You can't be serious," I say. "After what I witnessed this morning, you need to go cold turkey for a while."

Damon looks like he's about to breath fire. I'm guessing we hit that time of day when he'd usually have a drink to calm his nerves. "You can't tell me what to do," he says.

"That's what you hired me to do!" I reply through gritted teeth.

"Something I can easily remedy," he says.

"Let me save you the time!," I say. "Go ahead, order your fucking Sake and while your at it call up little Ms. Ponytail from Lululemon and have her invite some friends, order more booze and hash, and throw a fucking good bye party to your father's company!"

I get up to leave, but he Damon is laughing so hard, he's doubled over. He lamely reaches over to grab my wrist. "Ms. Ponytail?" he says through wheezes.

That's what gets through to him? Anger courses through me. I slap his hand away and start walking out. I make it to the sidewalk before Damon stops me. "Elena, I'm sorry," he says.

I turn around. "You can't do that! You can't treat me like I'm disposable and threaten to fire me whenever I take your juice box away," I yell. "You're either serious and I'll help you, or we're done here."

He puts both hands up like he's surrendering. "I'm serious," he says.

"I don't need your doctors, your shopping sprees or your money. I can figure out my life and find another job on my own," I say. I can't find one that pays as well, but I refuse to be treated this way. Damon's face softens and he walks towards me. He places his right hand on my shoulder and squeezes it.

"I know you can," he says looking me directly in the eye. I breath out a sigh of relief.

"Good, because I don't want you thinking impressing me with your obscene wealth will somehow earn you a pass to drink and go off the deep end," I say.

"Damn," he says as we walk back into the restaurant. "I was hoping my good looks and charm would at least earn me a glass of wine."

"You have better luck impressing me with your wealth," I retort.

When we sit back down, the waiter brings us our food. It all looks very pretty, but it also looks like something that should've stayed in the ocean. I've been to Korea, so I can work a chop stick, but if this is what eating with Damon is like, I'll have to keep a stash of protein bars and Red Vines at his place.

Damon points to everything and explains what it is. I try my hardest to keep a straight face. He ordered bluefin and burrata sashimi; squid, toro and Wagyu nigiri; steamed abalone and uni sashimi; and I lost track after that. I just nodded, smiled and copied what he did. The first pink thing I eat isn't bad, and as we eat and talk, I realize the more ginger and wasabi I put on everything, the better it tastes. I just have to ignore Damon's offended looks whenever I take a bite.

"You have an appointment across the street in an hour," Damon says between bites.

"For what? Am I finally getting my medical marijuana license?"

"Don't be a wiseass. You don't need a license, when I can hook you up with my guy," he says with a smirk. I laugh. "You have an appointment at a salon while I take a conference call with Seoul," he says.

Not happening. "Nope, I'm not going. Thank you, but no," I state.

"Do you always where your hair in a tight ass bun?" he asks.

"Sometimes I braid it," I say a little too defensively.

"Take it down," he says. "Prove to me that you don't need a cut."

"No," I say crossing my arms in indication that this conversation will go no further.

Damon leans over and with a quick flick of his hand, takes down my hair. It's like he's done it a million times before and actually found a use for that particular skill set outside the bedroom. "Jesus, Elena," he takes in the length of my hair, which has fallen past my butt. "Where are your sister wives? What was it like watching television for the first time after escaping the commune?"

I can't help but chuckle. Diners are staring and whispering, but Damon doesn't seem to care, which puts me at ease. "I might not have been to the salon to get a cut in a while," I say.

"Elena, you need to get it cut, or Brother Jessup is going to come looking for you," he states.

I grab the hair tie off of Damon's wrist and twist it back up. "Look, I'm not going. I have my reasons," I reply.

"A world renowned hairstylist would kill to get their hands on your hair, and you happen to have one waiting for you across the street. Give me one good reason why you won't get it cut, and I'll cancel the appointment," he says.

I feel my face heat up and tears fill my eyes. He won't understand. "I just can't sit there," I say. Tears start falling down my cheeks, but Damon remains resolute.

"Not a good enough reason," he says.

I bite my lip and suddenly find my gel manicure very interesting. "I, ummm," I pause. This is so stupid. "I can't sit in front of a full length mirror, look at what I've become," I whisper. Color gone from my cheeks, my face looks sallow and sunken in, my eyes blood-shot large saucers, and my skin looks ashen. I had expertly avoided full length mirrors and reflections for two years, taking solace in bed when I wasn't at work, numbing the pain. Even when I did my make up, I concentrated on my eyes or my cheeks, never taking in my full profile. Denial and I were very good friends.

Damon takes my hands, which are now shaking. I brace myself for a lecture. Him telling me that maybe I should take a good look in the mirror and see what I've done to myself, because that's what I would do if the positions were reversed. Instead, he wipes away my tears with his napkin, which is kinda gross but very sweet. "Hey," he says, moving my chin up so I have to look at him. "I'll sit with you. That way the stylist has to move your chair so I can distract you," he says.

"But your conference call," I say. "I can't ask you to do that."

"I'll take it during your waxing appointment. I'm not following you in there," he says with a horrified look on his face.

"Waxing?" I say.

"Yes, it was Abby's suggestion. She said, and I quote, "it will change her life"."

I relent, because Damon's being so sweet and I know he's right about the hair. It was a pain to manage anyways. "Fine, but I don't want it super short and no highlights," I say.

Damon nods. "Fine."

XXXXXX

Everyone loves Damon and it's as annoying as it is endearing. I don't know if it's the dimples or the money, but Rodrigo was so smitten, for two seconds I was worried about the state of my hair. Just because I didn't want it cut, doesn't mean I wouldn't care if it was butchered.

He tells everyone, because a crowd of employees and patrons form, about his adventures traveling the world. He had just graduated from Stanford, and his father actually told him to see the world, except he gave him an extremely small budget and Damon being Damon, ran out of money after the first week. So, he started doing small jobs in the cities he'd visit. He told one story about losing a goat while being a goat herder in Nepal. He was so worried about angering the farmers, he actually called his dad and asked if he would fly him in a goat. His dad laughed and hung up. I think I would've really liked Damon's dad.

When Rodrigo is finished with my hair, he kisses both cheeks and tells me to make an appointment the moment I'm ready for something different. He says this because the moment he saw my hair, he stepped back in pure horror, then told me he wanted to give me a long bob. Actually, he didn't say he "wanted to", he said that I _needed_ a long bob. I told him he could cut it six inches, which would bring my hair up to my lower back, and I wanted it all one length because it was easier to tie back. I didn't even want him to blow it out, I was fine with him leaving it wet. He said there was no way in hell he was going to let a customer leave his sacred chair without a proper blow out. In hindsight, I don't think Rodrigo liked me very much.

After my hair appointment, the receptionist guides me to the back where they wax everything, and I do mean everything. My beautician Tori looked like she was used to pain and liked inflicting pain. She had short jet black hair with half her head shaved, multiple piercings all over her face, and tattoos of Japanese anime characters. She didn't cringe at my protruding hip bones, she just did her job and filled the room with a one sided conversation while she ripped every follicle off my body.

My legs, arms, brows, face, stomach, and bikini region were completely waxed. I was splayed on a table, practically naked while she ripped away any sign of hair. She started with my bikini wax, so everything after that was pretty painless. Abby was right, it did change my life. I was dolphin smooth, and happy for sixty seconds until Tori said I needed to come back and do it all again in 3 weeks.

"3 weeks?" I yell. "You mean this isn't permanent? Or at least lasts longer than 21 days?"

The girl with a dragon tattoo cackles. "It'll grow back finer with each wax, but yes, you need to come back in 3 weeks."

Even so, I was glad to not have to worry about shaving for a few weeks. I change back into my dress and absentmindedly put my hair back in a bun. I walk out to the reception area, where Rodrigo is sitting next to Damon, talking animatedly to Damon while he politely listens, but it looks like Rodrigo's charms are warring on him. When Damon sees me, he practically bolts to greet me.

"Ready to go?" he asks me. Rodrigo sees me and looks horror struck. It is then that I remember I put his work right back in the bun I came in.

"Yup," I reply, already halfway out the door.

We leave the salon, and head for Damon's Porsche, which he moved to a spot closer to the salon. The sun has long fallen and I can feel my nerves get the better of me. It's almost like we spent the whole day distracting ourselves from going back to what we both need to face. But Damon and I are masters at distraction and when left to our own devices can do some terrible damage to ourselves.

I sit awkwardly in the car while Damon makes the short drive back to Century City. I stare out the window, listening to the instrumental music Damon turned on. When we arrive at the apartment building, Damon pulls up to the valet and gets out. The valet opens the door for me, and we walk in. Carrying my bags, Damon walks towards the private elevator. Oh god, how was I going to do this. I can do this. "What's the hold up, Elena?" Damon asks, because I haven't moved. I can't do this. I definitely cannot. I shake my head vigorously.

"I think I'm going to take the stairs," I say.

"That's twenty flights!"

"It'll be good exercise," I say somewhat unconvincingly because the last thing I want do is spend the next hour climbing stairs.

Damon straightens and looks at me seriously. "Get in the elevator," he says.

"No!"

Damon walks over, grabs my arm, and proceeds to pull me to the elevator. "Look, I need to show you how to use the key card to get into the apartment." He hands me a key card. "This is your key to get into my apartment." He shows me the card and pushes it in the slot. "You slide it in here." He walks into the elevator and points for me to follow so he can show me what to do next. I take a step in. "Wait for the light to turn green, then you press P1, and your on your way." The door closes behind me. He fucking tricked me and I literally walked right into it.

"I said that I didn't want to take the elevator, Damon. I told you that I wanted to take the stairs!" I yell, punctuating each sentence with a firm poke in his chest. The elevator starts to rise and I subconsciously move to the corner, where I can hold on to two bars lining the wall. I take deep breaths and try to remain calm.

"I'm not going to wait for you to climb TWENTY flights of stairs, Elena! I haven't had a key for the front door made yet, and if you remember, I have still have a conference call with Seoul to make. I can't concentrate on the phone call if I'm worried about you dying on the fifth floor stair case," he yells. Oh my god, the ego on this man.

I get up from my spot in the corner and walk towards him, fueled by a desire to annihilate him. "Just because I'm a stick, doesn't mean I can't make it up the stairs," I say.

"That's not what I was saying."

"Don't fucking interrupt me! You could've left the front door open for me, and nobody asked you to wait up for me, I'm not a child. And how was I supposed to know that you didn't make the conference call to Korea! You said you were going to do it while I had every follicle of hair ripped out of me," I reply.

"I did make the phone call," he says.

"Then why did you…"

"We're here," he interrupts. Damon pulls the key card from the elevator and hands it to me. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a silver tortoise key chain with two keys attached. "These are for you. The copper one with a 1 on it is to the front door, and the other key is to the gym, which is on the same floor," he finishes, putting the keys in my purse and walking into the apartment.

I stare at him completely dumbstruck. "What was that?" I ask pointing to the elevator we left.

"Is it a fear of elevators or are you claustrophobic?" he asks. Oh, hell no, he was not going to play the good guy here and psychoanalyze me. What he did was downright disrespectful. So, I decide to do something both self destructive and borderline suicidal. I take the empty garbage can in the front room, and walk to the spots I saw this morning. I walk to his silver bar cart and throw all his liquor bottles in the can.

"What do you think you're doing?" he yells, actually catching on to what I'm doing. I move quicker as I make my way to the deck to take the expensive bottles of bourbon and trash them.

"That's a two thousand dollar bottle of Pappy Van Winkles!"

I laugh, obnoxiously. "Who'd've thought a name like Pappy Van Winkles would be worth more than twenty dollars at the Kwik-e-Mart!" I say while running to the kitchen. I open the fridge and pull out the beer, then I start opening each bottle and dumping it down the drain. Damon makes a yelp of pain.

"I can't look!" he says. "This is too painful." I have to admit that there is something severely gratifying about pouring liters of alcohol down the drain, especially when it's not mine.

I turn around and Damon isn't watching me anymore, he's gone, which makes me nervous. At that point, I'd moved on to his liquor, so I place the bottle of Absolute I was pouring on the counter and search for him. His room is slightly ajar, so I tip toe in and see him stuffing something away. Fuck. I should've waited until he was gone to do this.

Five years ago, when I had just started teaching, I taught third grade in a public school. Every month the school had an open school store that was run by the PTA. My students loved the store, they especially loved the Smencils, very large pencils that smelled like different fruits. Eventually, the pencils became a huge distraction, so I banned them from the classroom. I had one student, Sean, who loved his and kept five in his desk. I explained that he needed to take them home, and he could use them there.

One morning, I smelled something fruity and artificial. Sean quickly shut his desk, and put his head in his hands. I asked the class if anyone was using their Smencil, even though I knew who was. No one admitted to using their special pencil. I told Sean that I needed him to talk to him during recess. When the bell rang, I gave Sean the opportunity to come clean. He still insisted that he didn't have any in his desk, so I walked over to him and asked him to open his desk. When he did, there they were. Seven of them, in a neat row.

"You said you were serious," I say, opening the door.

He sits on the edge of the bed near his oak night stand, with his head in his hands, his grey duvet wrinkling beneath him. "I am," he says, looking at the cream carpet.

"Then why did you just stuff weed in that copy of The Wild Blue?" I ask. Damon doesn't move, so I walk over to the book, open it, and there it is in a seven joints in a little bag. I take it and walk to the bathroom, and dump them in the toilet. Then I take the toilet lid off, flip it upside down and find a couple more joints in a plastic bag tapped to the side. I dump those in the toilet too and flush.

I walk back out, and Damon has remained unmoved. "You know Damon, if you need to get rid of any aggression, there's a gym on this floor," I say as I walk through the apartment and check every nook and cranny for drugs or spare flasks. I find a vile of cocaine and more pot underneath a cereal bag in a box of expired Lucky Charms. I found a flask under a pot on the deck, and a small bottle of cheap rum under the toilet lid of the guest bathroom. After a solid half hour, I have the place cleaned out, and a crate of 12 bottles of wine to send to Damon's sister and sister-in-law.

I walk by Damon's bedroom and it's closed. I suddenly feel awkward because this isn't my home and even though I spent time scouring the apartment for substances, I feel out of place. I walk to the kitchen and grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. I sit down where Damon sat down this morning when I made him breakfast and take out my phone.

I scroll through my phone and check my emails. There's one from the head of school. I hesitate before I click on it. Is this an email firing? Did they love Abby so much that they're hiring her on the spot? I click on it and scan through it. I'm not fired, they're holding onto my contract until I decide to come back, and if I do, the job is still mine. They love Abby, and she's done a wonderful job filling my shoes. I breath a sigh of relief. I still have a job, if I want it. If I want it…. Damon was right, it's like I'm twenty-one and still have my future ahead of me. I email her back and thank her for being so flexible and write that I'll let her know as soon as I know. My gut told me that I already knew, but I wasn't ready to own up to it yet.

Damon walks in and hands me three prescription bottles. "I tore my ACL snowboarding a couple of years ago, and my doctor was very generous when writing me a prescription for Vicodin, OxyContin and Valium," he hands the bottles to me, I'm frozen. "I thought you should take them."

Damon needed Valium for an injury? Something told me there was more to it than that. I wasn't sure why a sports injury doctor would prescribe an anti anxiety drug. My instinct is to actually take the pills, but Damon seems to be having a moment, so I use the tiny amount of strength I've had for the past three months and take the pills. I open the bottles and dump them down the drain, and then turn on the garbage disposal, then ripped off the labels and toss the bottles in the garbage.

I turn around and Damon is gone. I grab my bottle of water and don't have to wander far to find him. He's sitting on the white couch in the living room with his laptop in front of him, and I walk over to sit on the chair next to his. I have no clue what to say, but thankfully Damon looks up from his computer and starts to talk.

"I need an alibi," he says. "That's why I really needed your help. I need someone around me that can account for my actions in case another law suit comes up, or my contract comes into question."

"So you didn't plan on actually stopping your habits, you thought I'd be so in awe of your wealth, that I'd turn a blind eye to what you were doing, but still be there to back you up if anything happened," I reply.

He nods. "Until today. My sisters have been on my ass about changing my habits, and maybe," he runs his hands through his hair. "Maybe because it was coming from them, I didn't take it seriously. Beth wasn't kidding when she said you don't take shit."

I smile at that. Damon continues. "Like I said on Saturday, you'll be my personal assistant. It's not unusual for a personal assistant to have a live in situation. Until you familiarize yourself with the company, there won't be a lot required for you to do. You're to organize my calendar, set up for my meetings, and take care of travel arrangements among other things. I haven't had a personal assistant for the past few months, and though it's been a struggle, I'm used to doing most things on my own. You'll be compensated generously for your time, and I'll take care of anything you need," he replies.

"I've entered in the information in the notepad on this computer, and set you up with a new gmail account and account tied to the company," he says.

"Wait, that computer is mine?" I ask.

He nods, closing it and standing up. "You'll need something for work, to help keep track of accounts and meetings, etcetera. All the information, passwords, personal preferences on places I like to order thai food from are all on here."

Damon walks through the living room, and motions for me to follow him. He takes me through a hallway that I hadn't noticed before, on the opposite side of the apartment. He opens a door to the right, a study. It's warm and has a fire place, a large oak desk, comfy leather chairs and a library. The entire back wall is full floor to ceiling of books. A brass rolling ladder stands attached to the left side of the wall. There's no overhead light, instead small dim lamps adorn the deep red brick walls. "This is incredible," I say, walking over to the pool table on the other side of the room.

"Do you play?" Damon asks, curiously.

"Some," I reply. It's the expensive kind of table, made of satinwood with leather pockets. I run my hand along the intricate wood carving on the sides of the table.

"Well, this is the library, and before you ask, there's no alcohol or drugs in here," he adds.

"So you don't have any hash hidden in a first edition copy of the Grapes of Wrath?" I ask, smirking.

Damon shakes his head and indicates that we're leaving this part of the tour. Across the hallway is a theatre room, with two rows of four extra large theatre recliners and a flat screen television that takes up an entire wall. Damon shows me how to access Netflix and iTunes with a library of movies and seasons of television shows. On my way out of the room, I do a quick scan for any substances that I might have missed. Nothing. Thank god. Emptying and disposing of all those bottles was a pain in the ass.

At the end of the hallway is another room. He opens the door to reveal an almost white room with deep blue accents. There's a large plush king bead with a wooden grey bed frame. It looks like it could've come out of the elven woods of Lothlorien from The Lord of the Rings.

"This is your room," Damon says. "It used to be a guest room, but I think you'll find it adequate." I walk towards a large window that overlooks Century City toward the ocean. Damon pulls me to the bathroom, which has a large claw footed tub, a shower and spread out on the granite counter is makeup. I grin like and idiot at him. Even though this is all too much, in that moment, I don't care because I adore a good bathroom and I love makeup. Back home, I had a small sink, no counter and a shower with very little water pressure, so just having a functioning bathroom is a huge upgrade.

Seeing my expression, Damon laughs. I probably look like a mad clown. "Abby and Beth's stylist picked out a wardrobe for you. Whatever you don't like or don't wear, she can return or donate to Dress for Success or Good Will. Based on the description Beth gave the stylist, she guessed your size."

This is feeling like too much, and I suddenly feel panicked. Damon guides me to a walk in closet, where my Lululemon bags lay on the floor, but hanging up are dozens of dresses, and the only kind I wear. Short a-line sleeveless dresses. The shoes range from heels to boots. There are also a few blazers to wear over the dresses and drawers full of underwear and pajamas. The stylist even got my bra size right, which is somewhat humiliating considering I loose and gain weight in the ass and boobs.

"There's also extra chargers in the night stand," he says.

I turn towards him. "When did you do all of this?"

I see a flash of insecurity. "The truth, please," I add.

Damon steps backwards. "You won't leave? Swear you won't leave."

I lean against the frame of the closet and fold my arms, knowing this isn't going to be good. "I originally hoped that after our conversation on Saturday, you'd come back with me that evening. So, everything was ready just in case you said yes. Call it wishful thinking, but I needed you right away."

"You had this ready before you even met me?"

"I took a gamble."

"Damon," I pause. "This is a lot to take in," I say honestly. "I still don't understand why you couldn't just hire an actual personal assistant or get one of those sober roommates."

Damon folds his arms, mimicking my defensive stance. "Beth and Abby can read bullshit from a thousand miles away. My sisters trust you, so I trust you. Do you know how hard it is to find someone who's incorruptible? If I hire someone from an agency or through the company's hr, I might get a very qualified employee who wants to move up in the company and is willing to do anything to further their career, like spy on me or set me up because someone from Hamilton Industries or the board want this merger to happen. Not to mention, you are my alibi and you're keeping me out of trouble. Getting you a wardrobe to wear to work and a computer is the least that I can do. As I said earlier, you will be getting paid," he pauses. "Elena, there's something about you," he trails off, trying to find the right words. "You don't know how valuable you are."

I shake my head, trying not to process what he just said. "Fine," I say, throwing my hands up in the air. "What time do we leave for work tomorrow?"

Damon breaths a sigh of relief. "Seven-thirty."

"I'll be ready," I say.


	4. Chapter 4: Beginning to Work

Author's Note: Hi everyone! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing. Even though fanfic isn't working and posting recent reviews, I can still see them in my email notifications and I appreciate every one. In answer to some of your confusion, Stefan is alive, but their father died. Stefan was able to live out his dream as a sport's newscaster, while Damon didn't have as much freedom to choose his path. Elena knows Stefan because she taught Benji, his son and Damon knew about her from his sister-in-law, Beth, Benji's mom and Stefan's wife. Elena took Damon's offer because she is in extreme debt and needed a change. She wasn't happy at her job and has a rough past, which you'll learn more about in future chapters. Thanks again for reading & please let me know what you think of chapter 4!

 **Chapter 4: Beginning to Work**

I'm sitting at my new desk in front of Damon's fancy office and my hands won't stop shaking. That might be because I couldn't get any sleep last night. Literally, no sleep. Even after a luxuriously boiling bath, I ended up staring at the ceiling of my penthouse bedroom for forty-five minutes until I gave up and took out the laptop to start researching the company. Salvatore International Properties is a Fortune 500 company. Not only do they own hotels, apartment buildings, various commercial real estate properties all over the world, but they've also started investing in tech start up companies, one of which, a social network company for specifically geared towards networking within your field is said to be worth three hundred times it's initial value by the end of the year.

Damon seems to have a gift for finding value in things people generally would look over. Even more miraculous, SIP, as some people called it, has just purchased some hard to acquire land in an area known as The Peak, in Hong Kong. The luxury residential living complex he plans to build within the next two years has already sold out. No wonder Hamilton Industries wants to merge.

Since I was already up, I decided to investigate Hamilton Industries as well. While SIP is more interested in investing in property and technology, Hamilton Industries is more involved in oil and gas extraction and scientific research. While the investment would be wise for Hamilton Industries, the merger feels disjointed. The only tie I see between the two companies is SIP's interest in technology and Hamilton's interest in scientific research. I had barely scratched the surface on my research of both companies when my alarm went off, and I headed to the gym for a six mile run on the treadmill.

I felt confident in my new Lululemon clothes, until I started running and could only run five miles an hour. Thankfully, no one else came in. I was slightly worried that Damon would pop in, but knowing him, he probably just finished before I arrived. The gym has all the latest equipment, bottles of water, is stocked with towels, and overlooks the city. When I arrived and saw that no one else was in there, I kept the lights off so I could watch the night sky.

When I finished, I headed back to the apartment and got ready. I picked out a short a-line navy and white gingham dress with brass buttons and eyelet trim. I pair the dress with a white blazer and black leather oxford loafers with a slight heal. Hair is, of course, pulled back into a bun, but I do take time on my makeup, since the stylist got me all Nars products and I adore Nars.

I walk into the kitchen and Damon is waiting with two mugs filled with coffee and hands one to me and slides a croissant wrapped in parchment. I sit at the kitchen counter and pick apart the warm layers of the croissant with my fingers.

Damon takes a sip of his coffee, looking very serious. He quietly takes another sip, stealing glances in my direction. "Out with it," I say between bites.

He rolls his eyes. "We need to talk."

"We are talking."

He shoots me a look, and I put on a serious face. "Your issues with elevators is going to be a problem considering I live on the top floor of a twenty story building and I work on the top floor of a forty story building."

I shake my head. While I wasn't getting sleep last night, I had time to contemplate this issue. "I'm fine. Yesterday morning was the first time in years I've ridden an elevator…"

Damon interrupts me. "You haven't ridden in an elevator in years?"

I silently do the math. "Yes, five years, I think."

"How did you manage to avoid elevators for five years?"

I glare at him. "We live in LA, not New York. I'm not exactly surrounded by high rises, and I haven't traveled since high school. Now, are you going to let me finish?"

Damon purses his lips as if to keep himself from commenting and shakes his head.

"Anyways, I started having a panic attack. I think it's because it's been so long since I've been in an enclosed space like that. If I just take deep breaths and recite a poem to myself, I should be fine." Unless there are more than five people in the elevator, in which case, I'll either be in the fetal position on the floor of the elevator, or I'll be hiking it up the stairs.

"You recite a poem to yourself?" Damon says.

"That's what I said."

"Reciting _Mary Had a Little Lamb_ calms you down?" he jokes. I shoot him a look.

"That was the only poem you could think of, wasn't it?"

Damon clears his throat. " _Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred._ "

"Why does every guy know _Charge of the Light Brigade_?" I ask, seriously.

"Every guy?"

I relent. "Okay, every Ivy League guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth."

"What's _your_ go to poem?" he asks, defensively.

I roll my eyes and clear my throat. " _If you can dream and not make dreams your master, If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same, If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools…_ "

Damon looks plaintive for a moment. "Rudyard Kipling?"

I do a sort of dramatic bow with my hands, lowering my head slightly. He laughs. "Well, if you say you're okay. I just didn't want to have to hear about my new assistant having a panic attack on her way down to get me lunch."

"My panic attack will have more to do with the fact that I work for a man that thinks his penthouse is the safest place to be during a zombie apocalypse," I retort. I'm 92.5% sure that I won't be freaking out over getting on an elevator today.

"You are officially uninvited to my penthouse when there's an epidemic."

I throw my phone, keys, lunch and computer in a Marc Jacobs black leather over the shoulder bag Beth's stylist got me. "Fine by me. Don't forget to aim for the brain when you're overrun."

We head out the door and across the street to his building. As we head up to his floor, I catch Damon continually glancing in my direction, so I flip him off so he'll stop. This earns me a hearty laugh, and I'm officially distracted until we hit the fortieth floor.

Damon spends the time before people arrive explaining everything, from how to access his calendar and email to what he orders from Starbucks, then he leaves me alone in front of his office while people trickle in. Which leaves me here, shaking, trying to organize Damon's contacts by region and affiliation, because it is a mess. Thankfully, Damon uses Google Apps, which is what we use at school, and it's extremely user friendly. I'm organizing Damon's contacts in Russia, _Abdulov, Ananyev, Davydov_ ….when a severe looking woman approaches me.

"I'm here to see Damon," she says, not smiling.

I must have a dumbstruck look on my face, because Damon asked not to be disturbed for the next hour.

"You're name?" I ask.

"Daisy Drisko,"she replies. I try really really hard to hold in the laughter that is bursting to get out. Daisy? She looked more like an Petunia than a Daisy. I call Damon and he tells me to send her in in five minutes.

"He'll be with you in five minutes," I say, looking directly in her grey eyes. She looks like at one time she was extremely pretty and maybe looked like a Daisy, but years of plastic surgery did not help prevent time from swinging it's axe. She was wiry and her pale blonde hair was cut in a severe bob.

Daisy leans down and whispers in my ear. "There are thousands who would kill for this job and every single one of them are more deserving than you."

I've dealt with millionaire housewives who've chewed me out for everything from not giving their child an A on a spelling test, when the child could very clearly not spell _tomorrow_ , to getting yelled at for drinking Red Bull in front of her child. This androgynous Daisy does not intimidate me.

I smirk and whisper back, "Then it's a good thing Damon doesn't listen to you."

She straightens. Me thinks I hit a nerve. "We'll see," she replies. I buzz her in.

When Daisy goes in, I google her immediately, and find out that I made enemies with the company's CFO. Fuck.

The rest of the morning goes about as smoothly as my interaction with Daisy. Damon doesn't like to be bothered by anyone that works for him, which makes manning the gates to his office a little complicated. No one has appointments with him, and yet everyone has to see him. It gets so out of hand, that I don't even call Damon, I walk right into his office, in between meetings with Moscow and D.C..

"Don't tell me you're busy, because I know you're not for another ten minutes," I state with my arms crossed.

Damon motions for me to sit down. "Out with it," he says.

"Your employees are slowly turning into a mad mob because you won't see any of them."

"They need to schedule appointments with me, otherwise they should send an email," he replies. "I hire very competent and qualified people, they have people to report to while I'm dealing with larger aspects of the company."

"Then why do they keep coming to me trying to get into your office?" I ask, putting my head in my hands. "Paul, a senior in marketing, actually asked me to approve of an ad campaign for your resort on St. Barths."

"Was it any good?" Damon asks.

I look up and shrug my shoulders. "Honestly, it was a little bland and dated."

"This is why you are the Peter to the Pearly Gates of my office. If Paul had made it through, with that campaign, he would've been fired. There's a reason Paul is a senior in marketing and not the head of marketing. There's a process of approval he has to go through before it reaches me, and when the head of marketing okays the project, I'll see Paul in a more formal scheduled business meeting."

I get it. I get what they were trying to do and I can't believe I fell for it. "They're messing with me. Your peons are messing with me," I say, standing up. Damon nods, laughing. "What can I get you for lunch?" I ask.

I fly out of the office, throw my bag over my shoulder and practically sprint to the elevator, dying for just some fresh air. Damon sends me to a deli next door for a grilled cheese and tomato soup, because apparently Damon is six years old and home sick with a cold. To his credit, it's supposed to be a fantastic grilled cheese. I'm standing in line when someone taps my shoulder. I turn around out of curiosity.

"So, your Mr. Beautiful's new assistant," says a man about my age with deep auburn hair and fiery green eyes.

"Mr. Beautiful?" I ask, laughing.

"Oh yes. Mr. Beautiful Damon Salvatore. You're lucky. You know thousands would…"

"Kill to have my job?" I finish. "So, I've heard." I spin back around because it's my turn and I already know where this conversation is going.

I order Damon's food and myself a goat cheese and grilled vegetable sandwich and Diet Coke to drink while I wait. Sipping on my drink, the president of Damon's fan club walks over. "You know, you're going to need as many allies as you can get in that office," he says sitting next to me.

"And why's that?"

"You have this Dorris Day look going on," he says vigorously motioning to my dress, which I am officially burning. "And I'd hate for this place to eat up someone like you. You have these large sad puppy dog brown eyes, and I have this automatic desire to take you home with me."

I laugh. "You've just convinced me to watch Calamity Jane for the millionth time, not take you on as an ally. Why do I really need allies at SIP?"

"Because even though they were thoroughly vetted, the last two assistants Damon had were advantageous Harvard grads, and had prestigious internships at Hamilton Industries before being hired as the CEO and President of SIP's personal assistant. Everyone thinks that job is cursed. Rumor has it, they traded secrets for a better position at HI."

That makes a lot of sense. Too much sense. No wonder Damon and his sisters wanted to hire me, I'm completely 100% from another industry, with absolutely no affiliation to their world. I'm qualified enough to do what he needs, and really, he just needs someone he can trust. Not to mention, I'm sexual Kryptonite. Damon was probably so distracted by the amount of pussy coming in and out of his apartment, he overlooked the fact that both of his PA's were once HI employees.

I put out my hand. "I'm Elena Gilbert."

"Brody Stewart. I'm a senior programer," he says taking my hand and shaking it.

They call for our orders and we walk back together. I learn that Brody is a UCLA grad and has been working at SIP for five years. His boyfriend is a professional surfer. When he can, he gets to travel the world with him, and Damon's been flexible with his schedule so he can go pretty often because his job can be done remotely.

We part ways at my desk. I drop off Damon's lunch, but he wants to have a working lunch, so I grab my sandwich and sit with him in his office. He looks in the deli bag. "No rice krispy treat?" he says, winking.

"How are the Russians?" I ask.

"Cold."

"And D.C.?"

"Cold."

I grin at that. "Is there anything you need me to do this afternoon?" I ask, taking out my iPad while Damon takes a bite of his grilled cheese.

"At 3:00 get me a venti double soy Americano from Starbucks. I need the conference room set up for twelve people at six. Have drinks ready, and menus from Craft. We'll be ordering dinner and you'll be responsible for meeting the delivery and helping them set up," I write everything down, and he hands me a flash drive. "This is the presentation. Some congressmen in D.C. are flying in for the meeting."

I look up from my iPad, unable to help myself. "What's the meeting about?"

"I'm trying to buy government owned land in Hawaii for another resort," he says.

"You can do that?"

Damon smirks and takes another bite of his grilled cheese after dipping it in the soup. "The government is in extreme debt, and they don't use that land. I'm willing to turn it into something and pay them a pretty penny for it," he says.

I sit back. "That land is being protected for a reason. You're not going to be big bad business in this situation and bulldoze what was once preserved and sacred, are you?"

"I'm going to bring thousands of jobs to an economically depressed part of Hawaii. We may be building on land, but I'm preserving people," he says.

"You do realize I have 24 ten year olds that would draw devil horns on your head right now," I reply.

Damon ignores me and continues to eat. "If you have any questions about preparing for the meeting, ask Jenna Baudin. She's the assistant to Blake Reed, head of marketing."

"Thank you Mr. Salvatore" I say dramatically, getting up to leave. "I bid you adieu."

"Take your lunch with you!" he yells as I walk out the door. Shit. I already made a dramatic exit and now I have to go back. I'll just leave the sandwich, it's not worth it.

Once I close the door to Damon's office, I have a mini freak out because I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. For some reason when I thought about being a personal assistant, I thought I'd be running around the city picking up dry cleaning and trying to get my hands on the seventh Harry Potter novel, not actually setting up for meetings and dealing with people in the hundreds of departments Damon has. And I mean hundreds. I just found out that Damon owns a studio. He fucking owns a studio that puts out movies and television shows. They're looking at taking over the 007 franchise from Sony. Salvatore Studios. How did I not put that one together? Just breath, Elena. I just needed to figure out how my skill set was going to fit in here.

I leave the office to splash water on my face and when I get back my sandwich is sitting on my desk. "Never leave your fucking sandwich in my office again," it says in scrawled writing. I flip the note over. "PS Take a beat and eat."

I'm honestly surprised there isn't an additional PPS on the back. Damon must've been a note passer in elementary school. I wonder if there was a girl with bouncy pigtails he sent the "Do you like me?" with a checked _yes_ or _no_ box.

I spend the afternoon getting the board room ready for the meeting. Jenna turns out to be a recent graduate of USC, is looking for something in photography and being the assistant to the director of marketing was her way in. She actually helped put part of the presentation together and even got to go to Hawaii to take pictures. She's tall, tan, blonde and looks like a cast member of Laguna Beach. After she explains how to set up and take care of food ordering and then leaves me alone to finish.

I can't help but look through Damon's proposal. It's surprisingly good, and I didn't want it to be. The resort will be built on a struggling side of Oahu. The road that would have to be built in order to get to the resort would force people to go through a couple of struggling towns and would therefor bring business to these villages. Most of these people are on welfare, and Damon's resort could potentially get them off government support and thriving on their own. Not to mention the number of jobs he would be providing.

Damon even had a land surveyor from an environmental preservation society give the project his support, because the resort wants to take advantage of the waterfalls and lush natural environment as providing the visitors an oasis. Not to mention, this would be the type of resort that builds bungalows on the ocean, giving visitors a unique experience without having to damage land. After reading through the thorough research, I almost feel bad for giving Damon a hard time.

I stand in the back of the conference room when the meeting starts. There are twelve Congressmen and Congresswomen in slightly crumpled suits from just arriving after a long flight. They all look at Damon as if they already know the conclusion they'll come to without even listening to his presentation. Hopefully steak and potatoes from Craft Steakhouse will put them at ease. Not to mention the amount of alcohol Damon had me bring out. There's an entire room of this building devoted to booze for clients. I almost cried at the sight of it, it was beautiful.

Damon asked me to stay in the meeting so I can serve everyone, which earned him a severe glare from me. I'll just add waitress to the list of duties required for a PA. He also wanted me to take notes, and I was also under strict instruction to keep my mouth shut during the entire meeting. This earned him another severe glare, and I mentally gave him the bird.

The meeting seems to go smoothly once everyone has been served wine. I'm able to do everything Damon asked me to do, with the help of the food delivery guy from Craft, but I can feel the meeting not going Damon's direction. He hasn't had a sip of wine, but keeps gazing at it longingly. I should probably steal Damon's key to the happy alcohol room.

"Look, Mr. Salvatore. We want to know specifically how you're going to give back to the people of Hawaii," said a bald congressman from Washington. Why a congressman from Washington has any say in what goes on in Hawaii is beyond me.

Damon refers back to the numbers he put together showing the projected amount of economic growth it would bring to the local towns.

"What I see Mr. Salvatore, is a big road going through sacred land to profit you and your company," retorts the congressman.

I can see Damon starting to go red, which meant he was either going to have a drink, which is sitting right in front of him, or he was going to blow a casket. He takes a deep breath. "The poverty rate is staggeringly high, Congressman. My resort would no doubt bring business and jobs to these towns," Damon states. But they weren't after that, there was something Damon wasn't saying that put them off to the idea. While Damon's research is sound, and the numbers overwhelmingly support the buying of the land, his proposition lacks heart. They had the quantitative data, what they wanted was qualitative data.

Then, I have it. I have an idea, and I already know Damon is going to kill me, because I step forward and Damon returns the glares I gave him earlier ten fold. It's so severe, I think it could actually skewer me. "Congressmen, Congresswomen, My name is Elena Gilbert and I've taught elementary school for five years. Yes, Mr. Salvatore brought me on as his personal assistant, but the main reason he hired me is because he's having me consult on this project. He was waiting for your approval before he said anything, but he's planning on building an elementary school near the resort," I pause and from the computer, move the slide back to the one that showed a map of an ariel view of the land.

"One of his biggest concerns was the lack of education in the neighboring communities. We did research and found that children between the ages of five and twelve have to ride the bus for close to an hour to get to the nearest school and the drop out rate in high school is especially concerning. If you sell SIP the land, we plan on building an elementary school along the road leading to the resort," I point to the area of land that I thought would make the most sense. "It would be a private school, and every child within a twenty mile radius would have free tuition. You ask what we're doing for the people of Hawaii? Not only are we providing what is sure to be an economic boom, and jobs, we'd also be educating their youth."

Years of bullshitting at Back to School Night has prepared me for this. A congresswoman wearing a pink Chanel suit and pearls gives me a skeptical look. "And what exactly qualifies you to consult on this project. You can't even become an administrator of a school with five years of teaching experience."

I straighten my shoulders. "I have a Masters in Elementary Education from Stanford. In my first year of teaching, I taught at a first year charter school in the Bay Area, where the head of school, Mrs. Maria Combs allowed me to sit in with her on all her meetings, because I wanted to learn more about the administrative process. When I moved to Los Angeles, I taught, but I also spent time working at the UCLA Education Lab. I am well versed in all the latest research," I pause, hating having to say all of this. "Also, I enjoy the process of learning, and I know that ideally I don't have as much experience as you deem fit, but I'm willing to research and create the best environment and curriculum for these children."

The Congresswoman gives me an approving smile and nods. The Congressman from Washington turns to Damon, who I still do not dare to look at, and says, "This is exactly what we're talking about. Building a school shows that you care about what happens to the community. I'll be happy to give you my support on this project back in Washington."

Other's nod in agreement. I still haven't dared to look at Damon. Damon steps forward, and thanks each of them for coming, while I lamely clean up. I promised Danny the Craft delivery guy that if they allowed us to borrow their fancy plates, glasses, flatware, and napkins, I'd bring it back tonight, washed. Except for the napkins, I did not agree to hand wash napkins.

I take everything I've collected to the kitchen a few floors down, desperate to leave the room of anxiety, and wash up.

About forty five minutes later, I've washed and delivered everything back to Craft, which wasn't bad since they're located across the street and I used a silver wheely cart from the kitchen. Everyone has long gone home and most of the lights are out. I take the elevator back up to the office, grab my things and head back to the apartment. The lights are off in Damon's office, and he's no where in sight. Honestly, if Damon was pissed enough to leave without me, fine. I have a key. I press the button for the elevator and wait.

After a few minutes, the doors bing and I walk in. I hit the level for the lobby, when Damon slips in. He doesn't look at me, and he doesn't say a word. I know what he's doing. He's waiting for me to say something. I won't. I refuse. I came up with a good idea, and if he was going to pout because I didn't run it by him first, well, fine. I won't talk.

I last thirty seconds. "Are you going to act like a little bitch the entire way back to your apartment?"

Damon turns to me and looks at me like he wants to push me down an elevator shaft. At least I successfully got him to acknowledge my existence. Then he turns back around and stares at the doors.

"I'm your personal assistant. What are you going to do, email me all my instructions? You can't avoid talking to me for forever." Shit. I think I just gave him an idea and challenged him to ignore me for forever. Which I think that he could do.

I take a deep breath and I do something I've only ever seen done on Grey's Anatomy. He should appreciate the fact that I am facing a huge fear by doing what I'm about to do. I push the emergency stop button and stand in front of it so he can't get to it. The elevator comes to an extremely abrupt halt and I fall forward onto my knees. Damon doesn't help me up, instead he tries to reach for the emergency button, which I stop with a slap of my hand as I get up, except I accidentally grab his wrist, which causes him to lose his footing and fall. So we're both on the floor. I'm laughing. He looks pissed.

"Out with it," I shout in frustration.

He sits in the corner of the elevator with one leg flat and the other comfortably propped up. His jacket is unbuttoned and his tie is askew. He looks tired and stressed. He runs his hand through his hair and I see it for the first time. A slight twitch in his hand. He wants a drink or to fuck something with a hole in it. Not me though. I'm like Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons. Zero sex appeal. Actual Sexual Kryptonite.

I have to wake him up and out of this stupor, because he's teetering on the edge. I need to break out the big guns. "OUT WITH IT!" I yell in my teacher voice. The same voice I use when I catch a student running in the classroom for no apparent reason.

Something seems to stir in him. "You can't do that!" he yells.

"Do what?" I yell back.

"You can't hijack a meeting like that and offer up an idea without it going through a thorough research process. You promised them something that we don't even know if we can deliver," he pauses. "What you did was completely reckless and irresponsible. You are my personal assistant. How do you think it looks to have my personal assistant speak in a meeting that I spent months preparing for?"

I can't tell if he actually wants an answer. I wait for him to keep on yelling at me, but he doesn't, so I decide to respond. "I looked over your research before the meeting. There's no reason that this couldn't work," I say in my normal voice. "You have a problem with the board. You told me that most of them want this merger to happen," I pause, realizing there's no delicate way to put this.

"They want the merger to happen because they don't trust you. If they did, then they would believe in the direction you want to take this company. Building this one school, could be the start of getting your reputation back." I swallow because the next part makes me excited about something for once in my life. "You have the resources to build schools in areas that need it all over the world. In India, girls are abducted and raped from school. In Afghanistan, there are 55 girls for every 100 boys in school, and schools where girls are educated are gassed and bombed. How could you look at my impulsivity as anything but an opportunity to help children all over the world?"

I have tears in my eyes, and Damon's face softens. "Why didn't you tell me you went to Stanford?" he asks.

"You didn't exactly ask me for my resume or references," I reply.

"What would your references have said?"

I shrug my shoulders. "That I'm creative and when I get bored, I come up with great ideas, but never run it by administration," I say.

"Well, Elena Gilbert, you are officially in charge of this school project, which means you need to fundraise, and you still have to be my assistant," he says getting up and then helping me to my feet. Damon seems to have calmed down.

"You know, I've always wanted to do that," he says, pressing the emergency stop button.

"I was worried the fire department was going to come," I reply.

"I was worried you'd have a panic attack," he states. I nod in agreement.


	5. Chapter 5: The End of My Beginning

Chapter 5: The End of My Beginning

We walk back to the apartment in silence. I convince myself that he's still recovering from being as angry as the Hulk. When we get to the apartment, he tells me that he's going for a run. I decide to draw a bath before I eat my dinner.

Once I'm thoroughly prunned, I slip into some comfy Beadhead pajamas with little pictures of waffles and bacon all over it and walk to the kitchen to reheat my dinner of filet of beef, haricot vert and a sweet potato mash and take it into the theatre room with my dessert of a couple small short bread almond cookies, a mandarin orange and a diet coke that Damon's housekeeper, Gerta has kindly stocked in the fridge.

It's 9:00 at night and I need some serious distraction, because Damon has NyQuil in the medicine cabinet and I could drink and entire bottle before the theme song of a television show is finished. A long sleep sounds really good right now, especially considering I got zero hours last night. I really need a show to binge watch. Katy, a first grade teacher and work friend has been trying to get me to watch Game of Thrones. She got me into Mad Men, so I trust her taste. It doesn't take me long to figure out the Apple TV, and I buy season one, with Damon's account. Hehehehe.

I have my whole set up. My ice cold can of diet coke. My leftover Craft dinner, looking delicious, and a desert. I start the show, and it's very weird. I don't really know if I'm into guys in black fur cloaks riding through tunnels and then out into a snowy white forest. Feels very ominous. I'm not a horror movie type of person. My favorite horror film is The Shining, and I have to gear up to watch that, and by gear up, I mean watch it in broad daylight with a bowl of my mother's strawberry ice cream.

Okay, this guy in the black cloak is clearly stupid because he's crawling away from his horse. "Fuck! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! OH MY GOD!" I scream, immediately pressing pause and throwing the remote.

Damon comes barreling in, still in the clothes he ran in. "Are you okay?" he asks.

"Fuck no! Do you see this?" I ask, pointing to the screen. "There is a skewered child and body parts everywhere, chopped up in some witchy design."

Damon laughs. "Oh, Game of Thrones? I've been wanting to get into this," he says, picking up the remote I threw and sitting in the recliner next to me.

I look at my dinner. The filet is covered in a sort of blackberry balsamic sauce. I poke my fork at it and pick it up, purple black glaze dripping down. Flashes of the decapitated head come to mind. Yup. I've officially lost my appetite. I put the fork back and place my meal on the floor.

"Not hungry?" Damon asks, eyeing my dinner.

"You don't want it, _do you_?" I asked, shocked that anyone could possibly want to eat with a circle of chopped up bodies frozen on the screen.

I roll my eyes and hand him my my meal. "Just press play," I order.

We watch the entire episode, completely gripped by the story that's unfolding. "Geez," I say when the closing credits come on. "I think just watching an hour of this has completely desensitized me. I've seen more boobs and more violence in the past hour than I have in my entire life."

Damon's resting comfortably in the recliner, shoes off, feet out. He had to pause it in between so I could clean up and so we could get a couple mugs of coffee, which probably isn't the smartest thing to drink. "Do you want to watch the next episode?" Damon asks.

"Fuck yes!" I reply. "I want to see if the incestuous twins get away with pushing that Stark kid off the tower, and I need to see what happens to that blonde girl who married that hunky wrestler."

"Hunky?" Damon says.

"Well, I mean…" I pause. "He sort of raped her on their wedding night and she didn't want to marry him, but he is extremely…." I pause again. This is embarrassing.

"You think he's good looking?" Damon asks, incredulously.

"He's very strong. Not good looking per say, and you're one to talk. I saw you ogling her tits," I retort.

"Who's? There were so many out there to ogle," he replies, smirking as he presses play.

XXXXXX

After the first day of work, Damon and I found our routine. With the new school project to focus on, work became more tolerable. Exciting even. I also managed to not interrupt any more meetings. As I became used to my duties at work, Damon started adding onto my responsibilities. Our working lunches became a pretty regular thing, and in those meetings, Damon took the time to explain every aspect of the company to me. I became familiar with how things in the company ran.

I was often at the office late, trying to organize a list of contacts, working on sketches of what I wanted the school to look like, and things to do once the sale of the land in Hawaii was approved. I even got in touch with my old boss in the Bay Area, to see if she had any advice. We decided to meet up once everything was ready to put into motion. The time it took for things to happen was a continual topic of conversation.

"I don't understand why they can't just let you have the land," I tell him between bites of a bulgar salad.

"Elena, I've explained this to you. Government runs slowly. Whenever we have to get a permit or approval from a government agency, it sets us back, but we plan for it. This is a rather large project, so exponentially, it's going to take more time. Be ready though, because once we purchase the land, we're going to start right away," he says.

So, we waited. Damon took me to Barnes and Nobel so I could buy books about starting a school, and further my research. Once I found what I was looking for, I started my quest to find him. I didn't take long, I caught him looking at A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin.

"No," I yelled, catching him by surprise and taking the book out of his hands. "We agreed not to read the books until the series came to an end."

"Elena!" Damon whined. "I just want to find out what happens after the Red Wedding."

"We'll start season four tonight, I swear," I take his pinky in mine. "I pinky swear." We had both been working late, so we hadn't watched in a week. I learned pretty quickly that Damon was a bit of a night owl, often staying up for the sake of a teleconference he had in Asia. Plus I was still recovering from all the blood that the Red Wedding produced, and wasn't emotionally ready to start season four without my Robb Stark.

I paused, dropping his pinky, catching a flash of anxiety in his expression. "You didn't watch without me, did you?" I accuse.

Damon did the sign of the cross. "Of course I didn't. I wouldn't break that sacred oath."

I glared at him. "That didn't stop you from watching while I was in the bathroom."

Damon backed away with his hands in the air, knowing I was still seriously upset about that incident. "Elena, I swore that will never," he does the sign of the cross again. "Ever happen again."

He then crossed his hands. "Wait," he pauses and dramatically rubs his chin like he's remembering something. "If I recall, _you're_ the one that was caught watching a downloaded episode on her phone while running on the treadmill."

I push him hard and returns a look of mock pain. "That was a rerun! Jon Snow can be very motivational while running on a never ending path to nowhere."

Damon smirks. "Come on," he says taking the books out of my hands. "Let's go check out and get you a coffee."

XXXXXX

"So, how do you do it?" Brody asks, while we're drinking tea in our secret spot on the tenth floor. The tenth floor is under construction, but not actively under construction because according to Brody, the small company that will be taking over that location is still organizing. A famous advertising firm in New York wants a second location in Los Angeles, Brody's all excited because he wants to work for the company. I'm excited because it feels very Mad Men, but I'll miss our quiet spot sitting on metal beams while looking out over the city.

"Do what?" I ask, mildly curious because knowing Brody this could go in several directions.

He looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Sweetie. You've been here for a little over five weeks and every time I turn around you look like you added a new muscle and your skin is less sad and sallow. Is there a new juice cleanse I haven't heard about?"

I shrug. I haven't thought about Valium or Klonopin in a couple of weeks and I've been remembering to eat, which isn't hard considering Damon is continually eating. I swear I get him something to eat six times a day, and then order him a full dinner. "You've asked me this before and I told you that I just work out every day, sometimes twice a day."

Damon's offered me other resources like a nutritionist or time off to spend in his home in Malibu, but I'm doing well just being busy at his office and I'm too stubborn to listen to what anyone else says. Maybe down the road I'll take a Krav Mcgaw class or pilates. It's almost like exercising wakes me up and keeps me from old habits.

"So, you're not taking that horse tranquilizer that all the celebs are on? Because people are talking…"

"You are supposed to be my ally. I hope you're defending my honor," I retort.

"Of course," he says. "I shut those haters up. I just wanted the inside scoop." I had heard people around the office talking, especially when word got out about what I did in the Hawaii meeting, and that I didn't get fired right away, but I had years of experience ignoring that kind of petty negativity.

"You want to know the secret?" I say in a whisper. Brody puts his tea down and leans forward. "I use Damon's money as a wash cloth. The Benjamins give my skin a rich glow."

Brody rolls his. "How's Trevor?" I ask.

"Okay, change the subject," he pauses. "Trevor's amazing. Over the weekend he took me to Laguna Beach. He had a competition there, we went paddle boarding after and had a lovely dinner at the Montage. Then he got me drunk and had his way with me."

I smile into my tea. Brody gets this sappy little grin on his face when he talks about his boyfriend. "You know your eyes go from this deep evergreen to aqua when you talk about Trevor. Must be a sign."

"Do they really?" Brody says excitedly. "I am a pisces and he's a cancer…"

"His birthday is coming up. You should do something special."

"We're not ready for that step yet. I don't think," he says.

"Think about it. I'll gladly offer up my services as a personal assistant, and help you organize something romantic, should you need it."

"I might take you up on that offer, Elena. Thanks. I can see why Mr. Beautiful has been so content since you were hired."

"Content?"

Brody gives me another look like I'm an idiot. "Everyone has noticed. It's really all they talk about, other than your mysterious transformation."

"I still have no fucking clue what you're talking about. I didn't know Damon, I mean Mr. Salvatore, before I started here."

"I've been here for five years, and when I started, Damon was an amazing boss, even though I never worked directly under him," he says. I snort. "Only in my fantasies missy," Brody adds.

"I'm sorry. Continue, please."

"He was great, and then his father died and he became moody and a bit of a recluse. He didn't go to the funeral, instead he worked. I know because his old assistant told me that he had a teleconference with Berlin," he takes a sip of his tea. "Then the rumors started. He went through eight assistants, and pictures started circulating the internet."

"Pictures of Damon circulated the internet?" I ask, skeptically.

"You work for one of the wealthiest men in world. He's young and hot. Most people are interested in this sort of thing. There were rumors that he Pippa Middleton. It was all over the tabloids. In the past couple of years, it's been worse, but Damon has some deal with the paparazzi, so they never bother him unless he's at a legitimate place where they can photograph him, like a premier or something."

"What kind of deal does he have with the paparazzi?"

Brody shrugs. "There are just rumors, but some say he threatened to blackball anyone that publishes them, and if no one is willing to buy the pictures, it's not worth taking them."

"So people thought he was a recluse? What pictures were circulating the internet?"

"Not outside the office. Outside the office, he started getting a reputation for being a bit of a player, and he'd be gone for weeks on lavish vacations. There were pictures of what looked like him on Instagram, drinking and smoking, but no one could prove it was him," he adds.

"Then he'd come into the office and work, but he'd be moody and stick to his office," I add.

"Exactly," Brody states. "Until recently. He's still severe, just more even."

Well, I guess that's what going off of alcohol, drugs and cunt will do to you.

"When are we going to brunch?" Brody asks. "Trevor is dying to meet you."

I hesitate. I've been putting Brody off for a month, because I'm so afraid that if I'm surrounded by alcohol, I'll break. And bottomless mimosas is the fastest route to Depressionville. I can drink, I'm just worried it will lead to other things. I've even put off Beth and Abby, who've invited me to dinner on multiple occasions. I just need to stay in my hole for a little longer, and I think I'll be okay.

"Soon. I've just been so busy with the new job and all," I reply.

Brody puts his tea down and places both arms on my shoulders so I'm forced to look into his green eyes. "Bullshit. You've been working circles around everyone in that office. Even with this new school project, it hasn't been approved and you're ready for every single step of that venture. Don't tell me you can't have brunch because you don't have time. Be honest, Elena. I deserve that," he says.

I look at him straight in the eyes. "You're right. You do deserve the truth. The truth is, on the weekends I have to meet my contact in Tijuana to get my horse tranquilizers."

Brody let's go of me and laughs. "Just promise me that one day, you'll meet the love of my life," he says.

"Of course I will. I'm planning the proposal, right?"

Brody looks sheepish. "We'll see."

XXXXXX

When I get back to the office, I straighten up my desk and look at my schedule. Since my desk is the gateway to getting into Damon's fortress of solitude, I try to keep it as clean as possible. The floor to Damon's office convey's modern elegance. It's simple, surrounded by floor to ceiling glass so people can see clear out to the ocean. The furniture is white leather, even the desks are white, except the floor is made of a deep grey slate tile, giving the office a nice contrast to the severity of the white. Flat screens cover most of the walls conveying recent stocks or pictures of properties around the world. Simple white tulips in silver vases decorate the reception area and I liked it so much, I stole one to place on my desk. All of the private office areas and conference rooms are covered in sandblasted opaque glass with the name Salvatore International Properties etched in.

Damon's office doors electronically open, and either he or I have to be the ones to let people in. It's a very powerful feeling. His office holds the same aesthetic as the rest of the department, but is more- rich. The slate that's on the floor continues, but a similar slate covers one side of the wall that isn't the entrance or window. Bricks were brought in from Italy and laid in the wall, so it looks like a very expensive dungeon brick wall. There's an invisible door within that wall to a bathroom, complete with a shower.

Damon calls me into his office. When I get in, he's sitting back with his suit jacket off and sleeves of his crisp white shirt rolled up. He runs his hands through his slightly messed hair and motions for me to sit down.

I pull out my iPad to take notes. "What's on the agenda for the rest of the day?" I ask.

"I need you to set up the conference room on the 38th floor for my meeting at 3:00 with Robert Scott, the head of the studio."

"What refreshments would you like? Do you need me to set up the projector?" I ask.

"Pitchers of water and can you make that blackberry iced tea that you made last time? They requested it."

I grin. "No problem, and the projector?"

"Yes. This is their meeting, but they requested your iced tea and your skills with the projector."

"Okay," I reply, looking at him expectantly. There's a quirk in Damon's lips that shows one of his dimples. He needs to tell me something. "You could've told me this in an email. Out with it, Salvatore."

He takes a deep breath. "I spoke with Abby on the phone this morning and she thinks you should go by the school, say good bye to your students and officially resign," he pauses, looking extremely uncomfortable. "And I agree with her."

Ugh. This again. Abby was sneaky, I'll give her that. "When I told Abby that I wasn't going back, I told her it was best if I don't see the kids."

"Look, it's the end of the school year, right? Just go back on the last day of school, say good bye and hand in your resignation letter. I'll give you the whole day off."

"There's no point. The head of school already knows that I'm not coming back. She's been extremely happy with Abby taking over. Let's just leave it at that."

Damon rubs his chin. "You're chicken."

I place my iPad on his desk, throw my hands in the air and place them in my head. "Excuse me?"

"You don't want to go, because you're worried that all the progress you've made since you left will go away the moment you walk through the doors of that school."

Oh, he has no right. "Well, while we're at it, why don't you go to your father's grave? A little birdy told me that you haven't been. Worried that going will bring up memories of self loathing and you'll want to party again?"

I felt bad, but saying that felt so good. I hit a major nerve, because Damon stands up and walks to the door like he's going to leave. Then he turns around and walks back to face me. "Beth told you, didn't she?" he says, inches from my face, with his hands firmly on the arms of the chair I'm sitting in, caging me in.

Something twitches inside of me and I squirm in my seat. "I'm not a snitch," I breathe.

Damon moves back and sits in the chair next to mine. He's thinking, and I must feel worse about bringing his father into it than I thought, because I start feeling flushed. "If you go to your school on the last day, we'll go to my father's grave afterward," he says, not making eye contact with me.

"You'd come with me?" I ask in a hushed voice. For some reason the idea of Damon coming calmed me down a bit.

"A deal's a deal," he says, which makes no sense because it doesn't exactly feel like an exchange. He straightens. "Clear my schedule for that Friday."

I sit up, back in business mode. "Is there anything else you need me to do?" I ask turning my iPad back on so I can make notes.

"I need you to accept Chelsea White's invitation to a Memorial Day party in Malibu. We'll spend the weekend at my home up there."

When I started, Damon had me cancel any social engagements that came up. Instead of going to charity events, he's been donating more money or simply paying for the event. I know, because I'm the one that delivers the checks and sits in on meetings with various heads of committees. Damon donates most of his money to hospitals and organizations trying to solve the global water crisis. So why does he suddenly want to go to this one and why do I have to go with him? "Can't I just stay here and penthouse sit while you go?" I ask.

Damon sits back and narrows his eyes at me. Fuck, I know that look. "You're my…" he starts.

I wave my hand in the air to stop him. "Personal assistant slash sober buddy. I know, I know."

Damon shakes his head. "Look, I don't want to go either. But I think you'll like my home in Malibu and I can take you for a run on one of my favorite trails."

"You know I hate to run with other people, so why even bring it up as a plausible option? I don't even like it when you hop on the treadmill next to mine."

He laughs. "Then we'll hike it or I can teach you how to paddle board. There's a lot to do up there, I think you'll enjoy yourself."

My mind started racing. Before I walked into this office, I was able to set up my life in a way where I could be consistent. I ran in the morning and sometimes the evening. My tea breaks with Brody, and my work with the school in Hawaii. My lunches with Damon. I had a routine that I was starting to enjoy, and now I have two huge events coming up that could throw a wrench in my progress.

Seeing my panic, Damon grabs my hand. His hands are warm and soft. "There are going to be people at that party that will be very interested to hear what you have to say about education, and down the road, those same people might be very supportive of building private schools in impoverished areas."

He had me and he knew it. He knew exactly what to say to convince me, the little fucker. "Fine, I'll go," I say. "Not that I had a choice," I add.

He sits back, satisfied. "Do you want me to completely clear your schedule for that weekend? Is there anything you need me to do to get your home ready?" I ask.

Damon spends the next ten minutes going over details I need to take care of. It's mainly contacting other people and telling them what to do. I leave his office, trying to not think about what I've agreed to.

That evening, after a quick run, I grab a diet coke and go into the theatre room to watch a movie. Damon was on the phone when I got back, so I don't think we'll be continuing Game of Thrones tonight. I wasn't really in the mood anyways. I can't get comfortable on the lounge chair so I twist my body to the side and lie down, using the arm rest as a pillow and draping my legs across the other recliner. I flip through his Apple TV and decide to rewatch The Dark Knight trilogy. I'm at the beginning of Batman Begins when Damon walks in.

"What are we watching?" he asks, lifting my legs so he can sit next to me and laying them on his lap. He pats them slightly when he asks again, and I realize I was completely distracted by his ease around me, like we've known each other since we were kids.

I take a sip of the diet coke resting on the table next to me. "The ultimate superhero," I reply.

His eyebrow slightly rises. "The ultimate superhero?"

"Yes, Christian Bale."

"You're watching Batman."

"I'm watching Christian Bale play the ultimate superhero. I will never be able to accept another Dark Knight," I say as a matter of factly.

"I can't argue with that," he states.

"Good, glad to know we're on the same page of something as serious as this."

"And if we weren't?"

"I'd have to go work for Hamilton Industries."

Damon gives me a full dimple showing boyish laugh. "The ultimate betrayal," he states when he's caught his breath.

"The ultimate betrayal," I repeat ominously, narrowing my eyes.

"Well, let's watch, then."

"I'm not starting over. Just FYI, you'll have to deal with the fact that I'm already a half hour in. I'm not rewatching backstory."

Damon nods his head. "It's fine."

We're about three quarters of the way through the movie and I hear heavy breathing. Damon's fallen asleep with his hands clamped around my legs so I can't move. I take the time to gaze at him. Brody's nickname for him is apt, Mr. Beautiful, because even in his sleep, he's stunning. Gorgeous long eye lashes and thick dark hair, a strong jaw line that I so badly want to graze with my fingers. Smooth tanned skin from being under the California sun. Long fingers. He's even graceful when he types, quick and practiced.

I decide to let him sleep while I watch with the volume slightly lowered, enjoying the feeling of having a friend.

When the movie ends, I turn to the side, feeling slightly drowsy. Damon stirs and halfway wakes up. "Hi," he whispers.

"Hi," I whisper back.

He still clings to my legs. "I've been meaning to ask you.." he says in a hushed voice.

"Hmmmm?"

Damon yawns. "Why don't you talk to your father?"

I shrug my shoulders. "It's a long story."

"Will you tell it to me sometime?" he asks softly.

I take a moment and adjust my positioning so I can more clearly look at him in the eyes. "Sure," I say, and I mean it.


	6. Chapter 6: Somewhere In Between

Chapter 6: Somewhere in Between

"This day is cursed," I yell at Damon in the kitchen while spreading almond butter on a toasted waffle.

"You haven't even had breakfast yet," says Damon. "Don't be so dramatic."

I spin around to face him. "Don't tell me not to be dramatic! I woke up late and there was a spider in my running shoe. Not just a small house spider, but a big ugly black one. I mean, we're on the twentieth floor of a building in Century City, how does a spider even get up this high?"

Damon shrugs his shoulders. "They _are_ known to climb."

I roll my eyes. "Then, someone was on _my_ treadmill. The one that's right in front of the window with an actual clear view of the sky, and it's on the corner so I'm not surrounded by other people, just the water cooler," I continue.

"I know the one," Damon says dryly. I choose to ignore the sarcasm in his voice.

"So I had to go on another one, and I was so thrown off by not being on the treadmill that I'm always on, I was literally thrown off of the treadmill."

"How did a treadmill throw you off?" Damon says into his coffee, seemingly amused by my pain.

"Okay, I might have tripped on my own shoelace, fell backward and landed on my ass. My phone went flying."

"Are you okay?"

"The phone is okay. No cracks. I finished my run, but then I came back here to get ready and I dropped my Armani compact all over the floor of the bathroom. Charcoal eyeshadow, everywhere," I pause to place my food on a paper towel and sit on a barstool next to Damon. "So, you see…this day is cursed. We can't go, it's for your own safety. Who knows what will happen once we leave this apartment. Can't we just play hooky and veg out in the theater room?"

"It's the end of the school year, and you already promised Abby you'd go. You don't want to let them down, do you?"

"No, I guess not," I take a bite of waffle. "We'll be fast. They have a half day, anyways and I don't want to get in the way of what Abby has planned."

Damon nods, quiet. "Hey, I never asked. Have you been to the school? You've donated enough money to earn you an exclusive tour from the head of school so she can milk even more out of you. I'm surprised I haven't seen you around," I say.

"You know, when you're stressed, you get very chatty," he retorts, not giving me a complete answer.

I move my plate, not able to stomach anymore. "Should I stare into my food and act like it's the end of the world? Would that please you?"

Damon holds his hands up in surrender. "I was just commenting."

Anger bubbles up inside of me, not 100% directed at Damon. I don't know why I even agreed to this, or why it makes me so anxious. I get up and throw my half eaten breakfast away. "I'm going to quickly change and grab my bag, we should get going."

Damon salutes me, like I'm some general and I salute him back with my middle finger, which earns me a hearty laugh. He's acting weird this morning, and I don't know if I can handle Damon's weird mood along with the anxiety of going back to the place that was a minor factor in driving me to eat my stress. Admittedly, he has to do something he's been avoiding for two years, so I have no clue how this day is going to go.

I grab my purse and a bag full of books that I bought for the kids. I spent last night signing each one, hoping they'll avoid the summer slide and read. They've done research and found that it takes a teacher on average, until January to get students to where they were at the end of the previous year. This can be completely prevented if a child reads over the summer. I spend the last parent teacher conference of the year explaining this, and while the research that I show them is astonishing, not all listen.

When I meet Damon in the hallway, he's wearing a light blue plaid dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up showing off his rolex, and dark grey slacks. He looks effortlessly expensive, like he was created out of the minds behind GQ magazine.

"Where are the cartoon bluebirds that helped you get ready today? Shouldn't they be on your shoulder?" he muses.

I shrug. I'm wearing a coral and pink silk cami dress with rose gold drop earrings, strappy nude sandals, and my hair braided and twisted up. "Don't try to butter me up after breakfast," I retort with a grateful smile. He knows he's forgiven. He smiles and walks over to me to relieve me of the massive bag of books I'm carrying.

"I'm being completely sincere," he replies.

I beam. We take the elevator to the lobby, a valet pulls Damon's Porsche around and I get in. I turn on Beck to listen to as we drive.

"Do you have your letter of resignation ready?" Damon asks while I'm humming along to _Heart is a Drum_.

"Afraid I'll change my mind the moment I see my students again?"

"No, because I won't let you," he states, without any humor in his voice. My stomach flip flops.

"And how exactly would you stop me?" I ask, kinda afraid of the answer.

"I'd woo you with popcorn and season four of Game of Thrones," he says.

"You'd woo me?"

"Oh yes. I'm a great wooer."

I snort. "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten your skills with the ladies," I joke. "How are the clubs surviving without you these days?"

Damon frowns. "Honestly, I haven't even thought about it."

"Seriously?" huh. "So, it's a Friday. Let's say you had today off."

"Which I do."

"No, let me finish. Let's say you had today off, before we started this little arrangement."

"Is that what this is? A little arrangement," he says flatly.

I roll my eyes. "What would you be doing? On a Friday. Just curious."

He glances at me. "I'd probably be playing rugby."

"I didn't even know you were allowed to play outside of the UK," I chortled.

"I'm on a team with some friends from college."

"Sounds like harmless fun. How come you don't still play?"

Damon's quiet for a moment. "Do you know what we do after practice?"

I tapped my fingers on the window. "Have tea and crumpets with the Queen?" I say in a failed British accent.

"Don't ever do that again," he says dryly.

"What?" I continue in my British accent.

"We go to a pub and…" Damon waves his hand as if I can assume what happens next.

"Oh," I utter. "So, you're not ready for that yet."

"You're the one that said I had to go cold turkey."

"I know. I just…," I trail off trying to get back to my train of thought. "I forget that's what you did. You've been so incredible, I sometimes forget that was your life."

Damon grips the steering wheel. He has been good, right? That was my job, to make sure he wasn't going off the deep end, and I haven't noticed any of the patterns. The sneaking off. The dramatic mood swings. The smell. I haven't seen any girls slipping out in the mornings. His father's morality clause really scared the shit out of him.

We hit a stop light, and Damon gazes slightly in my direction. "You know, you haven't been doing to badly yourself."

I swallow. Honestly, at the moment, I'm holding on by a thread. I wonder if Abby ever found my secret stash of Girl Scout Cookies. I kept a bottle of Klonopin in the empty box. I look up and notice that we're almost there. "You're going to want to park in the lot on your left," I direct.

Damon parks, and we walk across the busy street to the gate. St. Mary's School is located in the middle of a busy part of Los Angeles, so we have to go through security before we enter.

"Hi Clive," I say to the security guard that let me in early every day so I could prepare my classroom, and helped me with my heavy bags full of books.

"Miss," he says politely, opening the door. Weird. Clive usually gives me a high five or shows me a video of his son Clive Jr. playing basketball.

Damon follows me inside and I direct him to the front office. "Hey Rachel," I say to the young receptionist. Rachel Park and I were close, and occasionally went to lunch together. She liked taking me to a Korean sushi restaurant on Wilshire and ordering in Korean for me. She made me try everything, including spam sushi, which wasn't my favorite. Rachel is extremely tiny with straight ink black hair and always wears the funkiest clothing, that somehow looked put together and professional. Today was no exception. She was wearing a neon pink silk blouse with a structured deep blue tuxedo jacket, black skinny jeans and layered gold and pink bangles.

"Oh my God!" she walks around the front desk to give me a hug. "Elena? You look incredible."

I embrace the hug, but feel incredibly uncomfortable. I break away. "Rachel, this is Damon Salvatore," I pause. Fuck. How was I going to introduce him? My roommate? Nope. Boss? No, not going to touch that one. Seeing my hesitation, Damon interjects, offering his hand. "I'm Abby Ellis's brother," he says.

Putting the connection together, her eyes widen. "We adore Abby. I mean," she hesitates, looking at me. "We miss Elena. It's just been such an easy transition."

"Rachel, it's fine. I love Abby too." The resignation letter weighs heavy in my bag. "Is Claudia in? I know she wasn't expecting me, but I need to see her for a few minutes."

Rachel peers through the window to the door of the Head of School's office. "She doesn't have a meeting for another fifteen minutes, so you should be fine."

I feel Damon right behind me. I turn to look at him and he gives me a reassuring nod, squeezing my shoulder. The warmth of his touch immediately calms me down and makes me feel braver. "I'll be right here when you get back." He takes a seat in the reception area, placing my bag he was carrying on the floor.

I give a little knock, and wait for Claudia to lift her head from the computer. Her short silver grey hair unmoving as she peaks to see who it is. I give a lame wave, and she motions me to come in. I walk into her large office and past the conference table in front of her tidy desk, with a simple gold framed photo of her grandchildren. I reach into my bag and pull out the letter before I sit down.

"Elena," she says as I get my bearings. "You look rested." I notice the bite in her voice. A rush of regret consumes me. I knew it was a mistake to come here. I should've done this over email, so I could avoid her reply and simply move it in the trash. Instead, I have to sit and withstand her notorious mood swings.

I decide that I want to just get this over with, so I hand the resignation letter to her. "I just wanted to thank you in person for hiring me and giving me the experience to be able to move my career in a different direction."

She took my letter without looking at it and stiffened. "You sold out," she responded.

Blood drained from my face. "Excuse me?"

"You were an adequate teacher, but you were never fully present. You weren't involved and you stayed in your classroom, rarely socializing with other's. You abandoned your students in the last few months of the school year, so you could live the high life." I straighten in my seat, focusing on the plaque behind her desk of all the graduates of this school, and the prestigious private schools they got into. Names of students who got into local magnate or charter schools missing. "Are you getting paid for being arm candy, or is he going to cut you a check when he's through with you?" she smartly deduces.

It's hard to believe this woman, who handed out hugs like everyone's favorite grandmother, could be so inhuman, but this was the same person that thought there was something wrong with a child if they scored low on a standardized test, not bothering to look at who they were as a whole person, or how they actually performed in the classroom. She pretty much invented the term "teaching to the test". Getting into the right middle school/high school was too important to the administration of the school, and I couldn't handle it. If the board wasn't full of her minions, she would be long gone by now.

I fisted my hands, digging my nails into my palms to keep from crying or worse, chewing her out. "I guess it's a good thing I'm leaving."

She purses her lips. "After the stunt you pulled in December, and then leaving in April, your contract wouldn't have been renewed anyways. Your smartest decision was handing us someone as talented as Abby Ellis."

I get up to leave. "Well, I'm sure that you have extremely important meetings regarding fundraising for things that we don't need, projects to put your name on, but make you appear to be a competent head of school."

Silence passes between us as I watch the color drain from her face and I walk out, wanting to scream and punch something. Damon takes one look at my face, strides over to me and grabs my elbow, steering me towards the hallway. I hear Rachel call out after me, but I ignore her. "You're upset," he comments, once we're in a quiet corner, next to a large canvas painting of a child reading under a tree, outside the office.

"I could go for a bottle of rosé and a carbonara pizza from Prova about now," I muttered.

He smirked. "Carbonara pizza?"

"Two eggs, smoked mozzarella, bacon and a drizzle of basil olive oil. Pizza crack."

"Jesus."

"Yup, this pizza could make you see God."

"So, it was that bad?"

I looked down at the tiled floor and did a lame attempt at a shrug. "It doesn't matter. It's over. I'm finally free of this place."

He purses his lips. "Should I cut off my donations?"

I roll my eyes. Of course he's thinking of the bottom line. "No," I sigh. "Benji still goes here and you donate so much, Claudia will make sure he gets into a good secondary school."

He nods, and I straighten myself, flattening my dress, even though it's perfectly ironed. "We'd better get to Abby. I'm popping in, and then we're leaving," I say more to myself than to him.

We walk in a tense filled silence to my old classroom. Damon keeps looking at me to see if I'm okay, and it's annoying as hell because I'm very much not okay but I also don't want to talk about it.

We reach the doors to my classroom, and Damon once again glances in my direction. "Oh, my God!" I hiss. "Stop looking at me like I'm a grenade someone pulled the pin out of. I'm fine."

"Yes," he says dryly. "You seem perfectly stable."

I huff in exasperation and open the door, which was a mistake. The moment I opened the doors, little people run towards me giving me a group hug. "Ms. Gilbert!" they yelled.

Louis, who was sporting a terrible case of bedhead, came up to me. "You didn't finish Harry Potter!" he wrinkled his nose. "You're the only one that can do Hagrid's voice right."

I turn to look at Damon, who's doubled over laughing. Yes, I can do all of the voices, including a British half giant. I also do a mean Dumbledore, something I spent hours on youtube watching videos, trying to perfect.

"Your face looks so different," squeaked Melody, inspecting me. "You're eyes got bigger." I raised my eyebrows, having no clue how to respond to that statement.

It had been a while since I was trampled by exuberant children, so I looked to Abby for help. I wordlessly pleaded with her to get these minions off of me, but she just stands next to Damon chuckling into her hand. Seeing my desperation, Damon holds up the book bag. "It's so good to see everyone! Once all of you are quietly seated in your desk, I'll give you a treat."

It worked, they broke their embrace, ran back to their desks, clasp their hands together and beam at me. I grin at their eager faces. "Since you are going into 5th grade, I thought I'd bring everyone a copy of a really challenging book for you to read over the summer. It's a story full of adventure and humor, plus it was one of my favorite books when I was your age," I paused until the excited whispering died down. "I think you'll really enjoy _The Phantom Tollbooth._ "

I start handing out the books to the students who are the most quiet. "Inside, you'll find a bookmark with my email address on it. I'd love it if you'd email me picture of you reading the book in whatever exotic location you go to this summer, or even a picture of you reading in your favorite reading spot. I'd also like it if you'd write a book review."

Some students already started reading, while others looked at the Harry Potter bookmark. Kaia raised her hand. "Yes, Kaia?"

"We get to keep the book?" she asked, wide eyed.

"Of course!" I laughed. "But you have to actually read it! I'd rather not see pictures of the book washing ashore a beach in Hawaii."

The kids giggled. Oh, I forgot how much I missed that noise. Innocent laughter. When I was done passing out the books, Damon raises his hand. I glare at him. "Yes, Mr. Salvatore?"

The kids started giggling again. "Ms. Gilbert," he says. "I was wondering if you could read the next chapter in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."

The students cheer. I was going to kill Damon. Maim. Decapitate. String him up to the school's flag pole. The possibilities are endless. Abby hands me a copy of the novel they've been reading, and I sit in the giraffe print director's chair and gaze out at my audience. "Who can tell me where we left off?"

XXXXXX

"You can't tell me you didn't enjoy that," Damon says as he pulls out of the parking lot.

"I specifically said that we're popping in and popping out. I never agreed to a read aloud."

"You didn't have to read three chapters," he says, knowingly.

I sideways glance at him. "Are we going to Forest Lawn?" I ask, changing the subject.

Damon's face darkens, and his mood does a complete one-eighty. The warmth of his personality no longer fills the car, and his ease around me has vanished. "Abby gave me flowers to put on his grave. He's buried next to your mom, right?" I continue. Pushing in places I know will set him off, trying to evoke a reaction.

Damon's knuckles whiten has he tightens his grip on the steering wheel, as we turn right onto Silver Lake Boulevard. "Damon talk to me," I plead. I feel him drifting to a place he hasn't been to.

Damon turns on Queen and cranks up the volume. I don't take the hint seriously, because I immediately reach up and turn off _Killer Queen,_ which starts a battle over the music. He slaps my hand away and turns it back on. I fake relenting by putting my hand in my lap and leaning against the window, and the moment he places both hands on the steering wheel, I turn the music off, and cover the radio so he can't touch it.

"You need to talk about what's going on in your head," I argue.

He easily flicks my wrist away and turns the music back on, pursing his lips in anger. I sigh and take out my phone, which is connected to the car's bluetooth, and use it to turn on classical music. If we have to listen to anything, it should be something we can easily talk over. When the music changes, he looks over at me in surprise. At least he's acknowledging me.

"Well played," he says dryly, as he turns off the stereo and continues to look stoically at the traffic we're stuck in.

"I know what you're going through," I say softly. "Going to your father's grave will bring it all back. The guilt. The pain. The emptiness. But you have to go through it in order to completely move on."

Damon punches the steering wheel, swears at a car he almost hit and swerves to the right, making an illegal pass almost going into the sidewalk. I scream and clutch the arm rest, bracing for impact. "Damon!" I yell as he speeds in front of another car. "You'd rather kill us both or a walking pedestrian than deal with this? Seriously?"

He growls. Actually growls. And it is only then that I realize what a mistake I've made. He's not ready. Not in the slightest. What I've done is pretty much forced a someone just learning to read chapter books to analyze _Ulysses_. I was fooled by the very fact that he was doing so well, that he could handle confronting one of his deepest issues. But before I can speak, Damon starts talking.

"You really get me Elena," he says, dripping with sarcasm, eyes directed at the road. "I mean, you know _exactly_ what I'm going through."

"Damon, I…" I start.

"Let's not be hypocritical, Elena. Do you think that you're really moving on? I've seen you avoid your father's text messages and ignore phone calls from your brother."

How did he know that? "How did you know that?" I shout. Did he look at my phone?

"You left your phone on the kitchen counter last week when you decided to change out of the blue gingham top because it was too "housewife-y"," he retorts, speeding through a yellow light.

It was also too much like the dress I wore on the first day of work. Ugh. I can't believe he looked at my phone. "I can't believe you looked at my phone. That is a huge invasion of privacy!"

"You mean like telling me what to do!"

He's being ridiculous. "That's what you pay me to do!" I yell. "Remember, I'm your sober buddy slash personal assistant. Telling you not to drink, sleep around and what meeting to go to is kind of in the job description under the heading of, don't fucking let me loose my father's company!"

Damon white knuckles the steering wheel in a way that reminds me of how I drove in complete white-out snow storms in Aspen, back when I taught snowboarding lessons. Gripping the steering wheel for dear life. "I'm not paying you to get involved in my personal life," he yells. His voice, so unlike the one I'm used to. I have to wonder if this is what he was like before he found out about the morality clause.

I turn towards him, eyes blazing. He is acting completely irrational. "You can't get much more personal than BEING YOUR PERSONAL ASSISTANT!"

Damon does an illegal u-turn and turns right onto the freeway. "Wait, where are we going?" I ask.

"You think you can try to fix the memories I have of my father by taking a few flowers to Forest Lawn?" he asks.

"Flowers aren't meant to fix anything," I try to rationalize, but his attitude makes my voice come out uneasy and a little afraid. "They're meant to give you some form of closure."

"You want closure? Let's go visit your father and get some closure on your life."

He's heading south towards the 405. Shit. There's no way I'm visiting my Dad with Damon acting like a lunatic and I cannot see him. Nope. "We had a deal!" I yell. So angry now because he's trying to turn this around and put it on me. "You said that if I went back to school and said good-bye to my students, you'd visit your father's grave. That was the deal. Not go visit Elena's dad because Damon likes to deflect and cannot handle _anything_ that has to do with his relationship with his father."

"You can't ask me to do something that you can't do yourself," he replies, moving to the HOV lane. I don't think I can handle this side of Damon. He's mean and completely avoiding. Talking in circles and yet swerving away from the bottom line. He isn't ready to deal with his father's death. But I cannot deal with him lashing out at me like this.

"Let me out," I yell. "I don't want to be in the car with you driving like this." Or acting like a complete crazy person.

Damon doesn't say anything, but there's a slight change in his demeanor. "I'm not letting you out in the middle of traffic."

"You want to drink or go back to your old habits," I say. "I'm not going to let you push me around just because you're tempted to walk into the nearest bar and drown your pain with booze and girls."

He grips the steering wheel again and I've lost him. He changes lanes and pulls off to the nearest exit. At first, I think he's going back to Century City, but instead he drives south toward Manhattan Beach. "Where are we going?" I ask tentatively.

He doesn't say anything until we've pulled in front of a hotel. "You're hiding something, Elena," he says, turning towards me. "You can't expect me to be completely upfront with you if you're going to hide behind your own problems. You don't want to see your father, so you can't make me see mine."

He is being such a dick. "This isn't about me!" I yell, unbuckling my seatbelt. "YOU hired me. YOU needed my help. I can't do that if you keep avoiding."

"Hypocrite," Damon calmly accuses.

What a fucking asshat. I grab my purse and put my hand on the handle of the car door. "I quit," I yell as I hop out of the car and run towards the revolving doors of the hotel.


	7. Chapter 7: The Dark Between Us

Author's Note: I really enjoy writing this relationship because Damon and Elena are both equally fucked up, but that almost gives them a level of understanding that no one else has with them. Elena knew she pushed Damon too far, which was why she was understanding of his behavior, but at the same time, still pissed because he was pushing back with truths Elena wasn't ready to face. Thank you for all of the lovely reviews. I really enjoy reading them. This chapter was probably my favorite to write. I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 7: The Dark Between Us

I guess the day was doomed from the beginning. I think Damon and I have the whole crash and burn routine down. It's probably good it ended. Maybe we set each other off. I'm currently sitting in a hotel room going back and forth between emailing my landlord and seeing if it's not too late to get my apartment back and texting one of my old contacts, thinking a Restoril and a bottle of gin sound really good right now. I can't go back to St. Mary's and I can't go back to Damon. I don't want to deal with his mood swings and looking through my phone was so not cool.

I decide to text my contact Xander, who prefers to be called Professor X, which I refuse to do because a) He is not bald and in a wheelchair b) He does not teach a school of mutants how to harness their powers c) He is about as close to being a Professor as I am of being able to control the weather with my mind. But I have to give credit where credit's due because he's the son of an oral surgeon and unlike me was able to steal Daddy's prescription pad without eventually getting caught.

I met Xander at a pharmacy near T.J. and with one look at his thin and tired frame, bloodshot eyes and Rolex around his wrist, I knew what he was up to. The rich and depressed. I may have never flashed my parent's wealth by wearing a Tiffany bracelet, but I had access to a beach club, a BMW and my Dad's prescription pad.

I sidled up to Xander at the pharmacy, peaked at his prescription and take it out of his hands. "Your 'J' looks like a second grader learning cursive handwriting," I whisper, taking a pen out of my purse and correcting it, using his shoulder as a desk. I then crumpled it up, straightened it out, and folded it in fourths. "Here you go," I say, handing it back to him.

He looked at it and then at me. "How?" he said in a hoarse voice, sounding like it was painful for him to speak.

I shrug. "I know that look," I say, pointing at his face with my index finger.

"What look?" he asks.

"The one that's bordering on masking pain and killing it all together," I reply. He nodded and we exchanged numbers.

Sitting on the white bed spread in the hotel room, my thumb hovers over Xander's number. My heart races, like it does before I do something destructive. The initial hit is always the sweetest.

Me: Hey X, can you meet me somewhere in M Beach?

He replies in a matter of seconds.

Xander: wherevya b E

 _Translation: Where have you been, Elena?_

Me: around. so can you come or not?

Xander: ru

 _Translation: Where are you?_

Me: Shade Hotel on North Harbor

Xander: b 8

 _Translation: I'll be there at 8._

Me: I'll be at the bar thx

I close the messages and check my email. Damon hasn't texted or emailed me. I wonder if he hightailed it to the nearest bar after I quit. There's a part of me that aches for him. The part of him that's still dealing with his father's death and using every sort of distraction to push the pain deep into his subconscious. But there's a larger part of me that knows I can't help him if I was dealing with my own pain. He's right. I am hypocrite. He just doesn't know why.

After coming back from the ice machine down the hall and filling up the ice bucket, I open up the mini fridge. I'm not going to drink. I'm just going to pour myself a cup of ginger ale while I wait for eight to roll around, then I'll take just two prescription strength pain killers, preferably Vicodin and sleep it off. I'll deal with the next step in the morning. Maybe I'll move to Hawaii. I developed contacts while working on the school project. One of them could hire me. Maybe they need second rate PA…or a math tutor. I'm good at getting people to memorize their multiplication facts.

I walk to the mini fridge and take out a bottle of ginger ale. The cute mini bottles of alcoholic temptation glare at me. I glare back. No. I will not go there. That is one slippery slope towards the deep end. I close the fridge and poor myself a plastic cup full of ginger ale with ice. I glance at the clock. 6:13. I have close to two hours until I meet Xander.

I turn on the television and flip through channels, landing on a rerun of Game of Thrones. It's an episode from the first season where Arya takes dancing lessons, which are really sword fighting lessons with a man from Braavos. Even though it's a rerun, I feel guilty for watching without Damon. When we were watching season one, he always made fun of Sansa and her juvenile love of Joffrey, something he stopped doing by the time season two rolled around and Joffery stood on a narrow bridge and made Sansa stare at her father's head on a pike. Damon and I yelled at the screen. "Push him off the bridge! Push him off the bridge!" She didn't, much to our chagrin.

We never started season four, and I don't know if I'll be able to watch without him….at least for another few weeks. Did I drive Damon to drink tonight because I pushed him too hard? Is he going to lose his father's company because I made a stupid deal with him? My stomach twists and once again, my eyes fall on the mini bar.

I look at the clock. 6:20. I sit on the edge of the bed, holding on to my cup with both hands and trying to concentrate on Game of Thrones. Robert Baratheon drinks wine from a golden goblet. 6:23. My eyes lock on the mini fridge. I'm not an alcoholic. One drink won't hurt. I'll be taking illegal pills in a couple hours time anyways. Why am I bothering to restrict alcohol? 6:24.

I walk to the mini bar, take out a mini bottle of gin and pour the entire contents into my clear plastic cup of ginger ale. I peer into the cup, inspecting the contents. It looks like melted glass and maybe it is. Completely exposing who I really am, like a looking glass. I'm like Alice taking a step into a familiar unknown.

My hands shake, spilling the contents onto my fingers, as I take my first sip. I let the liquid swirl and slide down my throat, slightly burning on the way down. I put my lips to the cup and down the entire contents of the cup. It's like the floodgates have opened and I'm already grabbing the mini bottle of vodka and pouring it into my cup, mixing it with the ginger ale. I'm not even watching Game of Thrones anymore, my mind is purely on the objective of getting drunk enough to be able to still take the elevator downstairs, hand Xander money, and get my illegal sleep medicine.

Cursed and blessed with a high tolerance for alcohol, I am on my fourth mini bottle of vodka, when I the clock reads a blurry 7:50. I throw my phone in my purse and walk to the door, when I realize that don't have shoes on. I honestly don't remember kicking them off. It would be so much easier to go downstairs barefoot, but part of me tells myself that this wouldn't be a good idea.

After spending what feels like ages looking for my shoes and putting them on, I head downstairs. I'm on the elevator, when a middle aged man with a goatee scans my body and gives me a funny look like he saw something he shouldn't have. His wife punches him in the arm and he turns away, apologetically. She switches positions with her husband, so she's standing next to me. "I'm sorry, love," she says in a British accent. "I'm just going to…"

She reaches around, touching my butt. "Excuse you!" I shout. Really, the nerve. But then I realize she's not copping a feel, she's pulling the back of my dress out of my lace underwear. I thought I felt a breeze on the way to the elevator.

Thanks to alcohol, I'm easily able to shrug off the embarrassment and by the time we reach the lobby, I'm pretty sure I thanked her for touching my ass. The ivory tile that decorates the lobby feels a little like sand, so I spend a good amount of time carefully walking to the bar. I scan the room looking for my tall lanky friend. He's not here yet, so I reach in my purse for my phone, hoping he texted me that he's on his way.

I dig through my purse. I know I brought my phone. I know I did. I feel something plastic and rectangular so I pull it out. The remote. I threw the fucking remote in my purse. Shit. I look up and scan the room again for Xander.

"First one's free," says a familiar voice. "Second one's on me."

I spin around and practically fall into Xander's arms. "Third one's thrice the price." I finish in a sing-song voice, laughing as I straighten myself, using his torso as support. I haven't seen Xander in close to a year and he looks about the same. Still lean, his hair buzzed on the sides, leaving it long on top, his eyes hooded, like he just had a drag. He gives me a sloppy smile. "It's good to see you E," he says, pushing me back and placing his hands on my shoulders so he can get a good look at me. "You gained boobs."

I look down at my own rack. Huh. I guess I did. I feel like I did when I was thirteen and Aunt Jenna told me I needed a bra because I was starting to look like " _Venice Beach Trash_ ". "Why are you holding a remote?" he laughs.

I put the remote back in my purse. I'd ditch it here in the bar so I don't have to carry it around, but I'd hate for the hotel Nazi's to charge me two hundred dollars for a missing three dollar remote. "Let's sit at that booth," I tell him, pointing to a leather booth in the corner. "But can you hold my hand?" I ask lamely, nodding to myself, like what I said was a good idea and I'm glad I uttered the embarrassing words.

I'm in a state of drunkenness where I will trip over something or run into someone if I have to walk across the bar to the booth without stability. I'm like three drinks away from passing out. Xander doesn't question it, he just takes his hand in mine, like I'm not allowed to cross the street by myself yet, and walks me to the booth.

I slide in and Xander sits next to me. "So what'll it be?" he asks.

I hold up two of my fingers. "Two Vics."

He laughs. "Two bottles?"

I shake my head, which hurts. "No, just two pills."

Xander groans. "I love you E, I really do. But I didn't come all this way to sell you two pills."

I wave my hand around the bar. "Can't you sell to one of these people?"

He gives me a side eye look that makes him look like he's about to sneeze. "You know I only sell to people I know."

"So meet someone," I say. "I'll help you. I'm good at meeting people."

He sighs and I can tell I won. "Fine," he reaches into his bag and pulls out two white pills.

I hand him a fifty, or a five. I can't tell, but he takes it. "I'll get us a couple of drinks before you help me meet people."

When he leaves, I hold the pills up like they're magic and going to grow me a beanstalk. It's been so long. I wonder if it'll feel the same. Will two put me into an endless sleep? Maybe I should buy two more, just in case.

"Is this what quitters do?" A rough voice asks from behind me. I yelp and not knowing what to do with the pills in my hands, pop them in my mouth and swallow, which is hard without liquid to help them slide down.

Damon sits across from me. I try to find Xander so I can visually warn him away from this table, but I have his bag full of drugs and Damon does not look like he's been drowning his sorrows at the bottom of a bottle. He looks the same as he did a few hours ago, except less angry. "What do you mean?" I say, casually brushing a strand of hair out of my face and trying to sound innocent.

"I mean stay at a hotel under the company card," he retorts. I breathe a sigh of relief. He doesn't know I just popped 2 Vics and my drug dealer is currently buying me a gin and tonic. I need to get to my hotel room quickly, or I'm going to pass out on this booth and my cover will be blown. Time to come up with a lie.

"I'm actually here with someone, so I think it would be a little weird if my ex boss crashed my date."

Damon's eyes shoot up in surprise. "You met someone already?"

I shift slightly, squinting in the dark of the bar. I think Damon's head grew, or maybe his body got smaller. "Professor X," I say, nodding. "Very smart. Has lots of brain power."

I continue to bounce my head up and down. My head feels like a bowling ball, like it might roll off and knock all the girls down at the bar. _Strike!_ I giggle to myself.

Damon smirks, knowingly. "Don't you smirk," I shout. "You're nothing but a smirker, trying to charm his way out of life's problems. But I know your heart is full of dork."

"Full of dork?"

I nod and catch Professor X striding towards me. "Sorry I took so long," he says, putting my drink down in front of me, completely oblivious to Damon on the other side of the booth. "The red head at the bar didn't want any Klonopin but the short blonde dude drinking a Corona wants a bottle of Valium."

When he reaches for his bag next to me, sees Damon and glances back at me. "You met someone else to sell to? You really are good at this," he turns to Damon. "I've got Vics, Klon, Oxy, Xanax and for you, since you're a friend of my girl E, I have Demerol."

Ohhhh, Demerol is amazing but one of the harder prescriptions to get. My eyes must go all big and wanting because X motions to me. "Don't worry, E. I have some for you too."

Shit. The jig is up. I take a long drink of the gin and tonic and finish the tumblr. I'm fired anyways, I don't know why I care to hide who I really am. "So this is what you were hiding?" Damon asks, even though he already knows the answer. I hate that.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say, reaching into Xander's bag, pulling out a random orange bottle, not caring what it is and stuffing it in my purse. I get up to leave.

"Hey!" Xander yells as I walk away from the booth. "You didn't pay for that."

I spin around. "Don't worry Professor X, D _e_ mon Salva-tourrr will take care of it. He may even be you're best client yet."

I make it halfway across the bar before I trip over someone's maxi dress and fall, taking her down with me. "Maxi dresses are for brunch not bars!" I yell, trying to get up, but I'm tangled in her dress. I hear some customers whistle. I don't think I was supposed to use her boobs as support so I could get up.

"Stop squirming!" she yells, trying to push me off of her. I feel someone's hands press firmly around my waist and hoist me up to my feet. One hand moves up to my arm and the other stays around my waist, guiding me out of the bar. I try to slap him away, but he's strong and I'm tired.

Suddenly, I can't walk anymore. My eyes droop, but I try to focus on keeping them open. I just need to get to my room and then I can pass out. The man taxi directs me to the lobby and says something, but I don't understand what he's saying. Something about going to his room, which sounds nice because rooms have beds and I'm about to fall asleep.

I feel my body sag and the person behind me sigh heavily. He reaches down and swoops me up into his arms. I try to squint and see who it is, but the light in the lobby is extremely bright. They should really take care of that. Wouldn't want to blind guests. I think I say something along these lines to the man taxi, because I feel his chest shake like he's laughing. He feels nice. "Lovely thing to do," I mumble. "Rescue me from maxi dresses. Very Jon Snow-like."

XXXXXX

 _The Spiderman wallpaper around Jeremy's room is starting to peel on the corners. He's fourteen and refuses to change it since Mom died. I told him it'd be good for him to change, and he told me to grow some balls, which makes absolutely no sense in that context. He's currently passed out, face down, which concerned me so I walked over and propped a pillow beneath his head, moving his head to the side so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit._

 _I place the cup of orange juice and Advil on his nightstand before I dig around his room for paraphernalia. I have officially given up on giving Jeremy any sort of privacy. Last week, I read his journal and found out that he'd been skipping classes and hanging out with Vicki Donovan at a graveyard near the school. God, he's such a morbid emo teen. He probably found the irony of being at a graveyard smoking a joint apt._

 _When I confronted him about skipping class, I told him that I'm driving him to school every day and walking him to class. He brought up the issue of not having the same schedule and classes across campus from each other, so I assigned football players to walk him from place to place. Matt Donovan helped organize this because it was his sister that was skipping with Jeremy, and Matt was the All-American blonde haired blue eyed football star of our school. It's like 80's John Hughes Law that he has to be either a good person or complete jackass, and Matt was a good person, through and through._

 _Since I invoked the Jock-Walking Law, Jeremy hasn't been skipping class, but he moved the party to his bedroom and sneaks Vicki in through his window. If I wasn't completely pissed off that Vicki was helping Jeremy obtain drugs and alcohol, I'd think it was sweet in a very demented version of lovable Sam sneaking into Clarissa's room through her window from the Nickelodeon classic, Clarissa Explains it All._

 _I'm under his bed, and I already found a couple dimes of coke taped underneath his bed when I see his sketch pad. It's tossed in a corner, buried beneath dirty clothes and one of Vicki's bras. Gross._

 _I sit with the pad in my hands at the edge of Jeremy's bed. The first few pictures are rough sketches of monsters, but the next is a sketch of my mom lying in her hospital bed. Her eyes look sad, but there's a smile on her lips. Always making sure we didn't realize how sick she really was. Jeremy captured her image perfectly; the way the patterned scarf on her head was always lopsided from lying in bed, the diamond studs my father got her when they first started dating, and the copy of Jane Eyre in her hands. Tears start to well up and cascade down my face onto the corners of the sketchbook. I yelp and try to wipe away the mess I made on Jeremy's drawing._

 _"Elena," he groans, getting up. He sees what I'm gazing at and falls back onto his bed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. "It hurts so bad," he croaks._

 _I place the pad on the nightstand and lay next to him like I would on Christmas Eve when we were kids and we'd fall asleep watching The Christmas Story. Jeremy shouldn't be alone right now._

XXXXXX

My head pounds. I think there's an actually marching band living inside my head, and playing the world's most annoying song on repeat. Like _Y.M.C.A._ or that stupid Gravity song Jer was obsessed with and was on constant rotation in his room. I groan and turn to my other side, hiding beneath the white duvet and try to go back to sleep, but a very mean person opens up the curtains and lets light enter the room.

"Stop!" I yell, covering my face with my hands and twisting to the side so I can use the other pillow on the bed as a light shield.

I've woken up to strange men in my room before, but I've never had one this rude. Usually they just leave or ask me to do something about their morning wood, in which case I kick them out, but I've never had anyone intentionally wake me up like I was late for the ninth grade. Usually they're laying right next to me, equally dead. Except I'm still wearing my dress from yesterday. Something's not right.

Irritated, I sit up so I can see who's being so rude. Uh oh. Too fast. Way too fast. Moisture starts filling my mouth and my stomach churns. I leap out of bed and even though my vision is blurred, make it to the toilet in time. Well, sort of in time. Half the contents in my stomach landed in the bowl and half on the tiled floor. I'm leaning over the bowl dry heaving when someone's body fills the doorway. I peer through hair that didn't survive the trip to the porcelain horse to see who it is. "Jesus," he says. "Did I look that bad when you found me?"

"Do I look like Cersei Lannister just ordered The Hound to pound me into the ground?" I moan, resting my head on my arms while they grasp the toilet.

Damon's fuzzy shape approaches me. "More like The Mountain."

I groan into the toilet and feel another stomach attack about to come on. Damon rushes to my side and holds back my hair while I puke into the toilet. He even rubs my back in soothing circular motions. It feels nice.

"I quit," I tell him, afraid to move away from the safety of the toilet, even though I think the worst is over.

"I don't accept your resignation," he replies.

I turn my head slightly and give him incredulous look. Of course he doesn't. He probably wants to properly fire me. "You can't fire me right now, just because you don't accept my resignation."

"I don't want to fire you," he says, hand still comfortingly on my back. "Who else is going to make special iced tea for my clients and make sure my refrigerator is stocked with Stewart's root beer and orange soda?"

"Don't talk about food right now!" I plead feeling another dry heave come on.

"I was talking about soda."

"Stop!" Yup, another heave.

Damon and I sit in the bathroom in silence until I feel okay enough to leave. At one point, Damon tries to pick me up and carry me back to bed, but I hugged the base of the toilet in retaliation, refusing to let go. He eventually gave up. I think because I smell like vomit and regret.

Damon throws me one of his white undershirts to wear, since my dress is covered in sick and needs to be burned of all evil curses. He politely turns around while I change and crawl back into bed. Damon picks the dress up off the floor with the hook of a coat hanger and tosses it into the trash.

I've known Damon for close to two months, and have noticed that the further he gets from his addiction, the more of an obsessive compulsive nut he becomes. He may have a Gerta to stock his refrigerator and take care of basic housekeeping, but he can organize the shit out of a sock drawer and he has a weird thing about black Montblanc pens. He always has seven lying in a neat little row in a black leather rectangular container on his desk. Not eight, or five, but seven. A couple of weeks ago, all hell broke loose when he couldn't find one. It was in the pocket of my blazer. He was not pleased.

"I still quit," I say. "You were being mean and rude, not to mention you were literally trying to drive me away."

Damon sits at the edge of the bed and sighs. "You were right to quit. We had a deal and I didn't follow through on my end."

I nod, satisfied. "But you lied," he adds.

"Technically, I never lied. You hired me to be a sober buddy and personal assistant, under the assumption that I was a goody-two-shoes teacher. You hired me based off of a stereotype. That's on you," I retort, suddenly feeling better.

"You acted hypocritically."

"You acted like a grade A jackass."

He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. "So, who's Professor X?"

Oh my God. I forgot about Xander. Do I still have pills in my purse? Hopefully Damon didn't see them and take them. Wait. I look around the room. The bed is on the wrong side of the room, and his room is bigger. "We aren't in my room," I observe.

"No. You passed out before you could tell me what room you were in."

"I didn't like…" I pause, trying to figure out how to phrase what I'm about to ask. I get obscenely flirty when I'm drunk. "…make a pass at you?"

Damon doesn't say anything. Shit. Oh my god, please say it's not like the time I told Drew Chester that I wanted his cock to enter my lady park.

"Who's Professor X?" he asks, clearly not wanting to talk about what I said last night under the influence of lovely sleeping magic pills.

"He's an old friend," I reply, yawning and lying back into the pillows. I think Damon breaths a sigh of relief.

I turn to my side and feel my eyes begin to droop again. What was in those pills X got me? Powerful little guys. "Damon?" I breathe.

Damon shifts so he's sitting closer to me. "I'm tired," I yawn again. He gently brushes the hair out of my face so I don't choke on falling strands and gets up to close the curtains, darkness cloaks the room just as I fall back to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8: Between You and Me

Chapter 8: Between You and Me

"Are you fucking out of your mind?" I yell. "I'm not playing a drinking game with you. I may have quit, but I will not participate in you falling off the deep end. Nope. Not happening."

Damon and I are sitting across from each other at a dining table in his hotel room. When I woke up after a fourteen hour sleep, showered and changed into a tank top, leggings and flip flops he purchased me, Damon had breakfast waiting. My favorite, banana pancakes with tons of butter. I think he's trying to literally butter me up so I'll come back and work for him. I'm undecided. I don't think we're good for each other, but if he's willing to buy me breakfast and nurse me back to a regular human being, I'm not going to complain.

"Not with alcohol," he says. "Water."

Well, that's no fun. "Super lame, Damon. I think I'll pass on the Mormon version of _Never have I ever_.…"

He sighs, clearly irritated. "You hardly ate your pancakes…."

Honestly, Damon's pancakes are better, but I'm not about to tell him that. "I think I have PTSD from all the vomiting. I'm not ready for solids quite yet."

"You look dry," he says.

I cock an eyebrow. "You have that effect on me."

He ignores my dig. "Your lips are chapped, skin looks ashen and I'm worried you're on the verge of passing out."

Good, another nap sounds much better than dealing with this conversation. "And what exactly do you think a non alcoholic drinking game will do?"

Damon shrugs. "I thought it would be an interesting way to get liquid in your system. But if you don't want to play…" he hands me a large bottle of Smart water. "Then at least drink this."

I glance at the blue label on the bottle of water, not touching it. I wonder what the game is. Damon probably knows some good games, and I have nothing better to do at the moment. A little distraction couldn't hurt. "What's the game?"

He throws me an annoyingly satisfied smirk, which immediately makes me want to take back my inquiry. "It's easy," he explains. "We take turns asking a question. It can be any question. If you refuse to answer the question or answer it dishonestly, you have to drink. If you answer the question truthfully, I drink."

I roll my eyes. "That's it? I have to drink water? This isn't a game, it's a weird version or truth or dare, but without the fun dares. It's like…"

Damon leans over and covers my mouth with his hand to shut me up. Even though he's been in this room with me for close to two days, he smells clean, like he just showered. "Are you going to let me finish?"

I nod and he moves his hand. "You have to drink the full cup," he holds up one of the smaller plastic cups from the bathroom, that was once wrapped in plastic. "And you can't move your lip from the bottom of the cup."

This just got interesting. "So, I'd have to drink it in one gulp?"

He nods. "And I can ask you anything I want?" I add. The possibilities are endless.

"Yes, but you have to answer truthfully," he says. "Don't forget, I know your tells."

He does. Damon's always been good at reading me. It's annoying as hell. "Fine," I finally say. "I'll play, but I'm pretty certain that the most interesting thing to come out of this, is a fight for the bathroom."

Damon takes out two plastic cups and fills them with water so they're both even. It's not that much, but he explained that the further we continue into the game, the more we have to drink. I can see how this would be fun with actual alcohol, but with water I'm skeptical. Damon obviously has ulterior motives by thinking he can get me into a false sense of security and then ask something he really wants to know, like the secret ingredient in my snickerdoodles.

"Who goes first?" I ask.

"I'll go first," he says.

"What happened to ladies first?" I ask incredulously.

"If there was a lady present, I'd let her go before me," he states.

I glare at him. "Low blow, Damon. Low blow."

He shrugs his shoulders, not feeling sorry for the comment in the slightest. "I'll go easy on you."

I dramatically raise my eyebrows. "No _man_ has ever said that to me."

"Quit being cute," he retorts.

I smirk and rub my hands together. "Let's play!"

"What's your favorite movie? Your real favorite movie, not the one you tell other people so you sound like an intellectual," he says.

Wow, he really is starting out easy. Feels like a trick. "The Fugitive," I say.

"Drink up, Elena," Damon says.

"Why? That's my favorite movie!" I yell.

He shakes his head. "Your favorite movie is Overboard. After the first couple of weeks living with me, I walked into the theatre room and you were crying during the closing credits. You said it was your favorite movie and made me watch it with you for a second time that evening."

The ending always makes me emotional because the kids have a mother again. I forgot about that. I drink the water in one gulp and Damon pours me another cup, raising the water line slightly from the last time he filled it.

I already know his favorite movie. The dork, but I ask anyways. "What's your favorite movie?"

"Field of Dreams," he says. "Drink up."

"No it's not!" I yell. "It's _The Princess Bride_ , and when I told you that I hadn't seen it, you made me watch it."

I guess in retrospect we both spend a lot of time making each other watch movies. Damon even bought an old-fashioned popcorn machine for the room. He makes really good popcorn. Just enough butter and salt.

He shakes his head and motions for me to drink. "I used to watch the movie with my Dad," Damon laughs to himself. "He could quote the entire movie," Damon pauses. " _Ray. People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past."_

I nod and take a drink. Damon never talks about his father, refused to visit his grave and now he's opening up. I think this is his version of a peace offering, after driving like a mad person and threatening to take me to my father's. I'm still mad about that, but taking care of me and giving me some more information is helping. I still quit though.

"Favorite food?" Damon asks.

"Thanksgiving dinner," I say. Damon knows this because we've talked about it before.

"Take a drink," he says.

"What? That's the truth."

He shakes his head. "First of all, I asked for your favorite food, not meal. Second, a week after you started working for me, I made the mistake of ordering you a turkey sandwich from Joan's on Third and you said that the only time you eat turkey is the day after Thanksgiving, because you make what you call a Ross Sandwich. Turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, with a slice of gravy-soaked bread in the middle called the _moist maker_. It's your favorite food, but you only have it once a year. I still don't get it."

Dammit he's right. "On Thanksgiving, you don't even eat the turkey you'll end up eating the next day. You call it sacrilege," he adds.

"Cause it is," I argue, smiling. "You can't taint a wonderful experience by eating it before it's even good."

Damon rolls his eyes. "I still don't get it."

I shrug my shoulders and drink the cup of water. I really suck at this game. "Your favorite food is a grilled cheese sandwich," I say. "But what makes it even better is if you have tomato soup to dunk it in."

"That's not a question," Damon points out.

"I know," I reply. "I'm just saying that to prove I know you better than you think."

"I already know you know me well," he says.

I must look confused because he continues. "You know my coffee order. You know what treadmill I like to run on in the morning. You know that if someone bother's me between the hours of eight and nine AM, every Wednesday, I get angry. You even get me a pack of Big Red gum after lunch because that's when I'd usually have my first drink of the day."

"I was your PA," I reply simply.

"Still are," he states.

"Why do you get cranky between the hours of eight and nine every Wednesday?" I ask. I practically hold my breath, hoping Damon will answer.

He considers me. He's the one that opened this door. I was just going to ask him why he likes grilled cheese and tomato soup.

"On Wednesday, June 18, 2014, at 8:13 in the morning, I decided to take a conference call instead of go to my father's funeral," he answers. I drink the water, letting the liquid run down my throat as I digest the words. He's still punishing himself.

"The day of my Mom's funeral, I decided to take it upon myself to clean out her medicine cabinet," I explain, grabbing the bottle of Smart Water and pouring myself another cup. "She had an almost full bottle of methadone in her cabinet and I took two with coffee and then two more before the funeral. I was high throughout the entire service, even gave a eulogy and no one noticed because they thought I was just emotional."

"Why did you tell me that?" Damon asks.

"We're both experts at hating ourselves," I reply, motioning for him to take a drink for responding to his question, which he does.

"Why did you skip the funeral?" I ask. Damon doesn't respond, instead he takes the long drink from his own cup. I guess he's not willing to go there yet.

He's getting that look that reminds me of when we started the drive to Forest Lawn. He's going to try to push me away. "Have you ever been high when you were with students?" he baits.

He wants me to not answer and get angry, but I'm not going to give in. "No," I reply, honestly. "I'm not an addict, but I am a master at over compensating. I'd work hard during the week, and then the moment 3:30 rolled around on a Friday, I'd pop a few pills and go to a club. Friday always bled into Saturday, and then I'd sleep everything off on Sunday so I could be coherent for Monday. Long breaks and the summer were.." I pause. Unsure of what to say next.

"A haze of debauchery," Damon finishes, drinking from his cup.

I nod, filling it with water to a higher line. "Do you wish bourbon was in that cup?"

He looks down at it and frowns. "Yes."

I take a deep breath and go for a drink, I can barely get the water down in one gulp. This game is getting increasingly harder. "Was your mother's funeral the first time you used?"

I nod while Damon drinks. "I was so used to making her take them every day, on schedule, it seemed like a natural transition, but I didn't use again until a couple years later. The memory of waking up in the laundry room two days after the funeral haunted me until I gave in again."

"When did the drinking and partying start?" I ask, thinking he'll avoid the answer again.

Damon leans back in his chair and purses his lips together, thinking. "My Dad gave me a sip of champagne on New Year's Eve when I was thirteen, and I guess it was all downhill from there."

"Take a drink," I state.

"I'm answering truthfully," he refutes. "It was at a New Year's Eve party and it was my first sip of champagne."

"That wasn't the question," I reply. "The question was when did the drinking and partying start."

I pause and place my hand on my forehead thinking. He may have answered the question literally, but he did answer the question right. Dammit. I take a long gulp, tilting the cup as I drink and breath through my nose. I slam the cup down upside down. Damon takes out two cups and fills one up all the way, and the other up partially. "What are you doing?" I ask. Wait, that was a question. Shit. "That doesn't count as a question!"

Damon shrugs. "It wasn't your turn anyways. The point of the game is to keep raising the stakes, and you've already hit the last marker, so we add another cup," he explains.

I hold my stomach and nod, knowing I'll either pee or get sick if this game lasts much longer. "You're not up to it," Damon says, sounding hopeful and avoiding asking a question. Smart.

I shake my head, not willing to give up. "Ask your next question."

"Why won't you talk to your father?" he asks casually, like he's asking why I don't like baseball. I am going to kill him. He was saving that question until I got to the point where I'd either be forced to answer, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction. I pick up the cup, cock an eyebrow and drink the entire cup and then the next one. When I'm done, I take a few deep breaths and shift in my chair.

"Why did you start drinking after your father's funeral?" I ask. He has to answer. He can't require me to give 100% when he's giving 50%. I don't care if I have to drink another 12 ounces of water.

"It helped me get through the day," he answers. "If I drink, I don't have think about how my life has been dictated since I was ten and I have no choice but to continue along that path. Or think about the real reason I'm upset about my father's death, is because I thought if I had a few more years of freedom, I could accept that fact that I have to run my father's company for the rest of my life," he pauses, not looking at me. I hold my breath, in shock that he's actually revealing something. "My Dad's death sealed my death sentence. How fucked up is that?"

I drink the water in front of me in record time, and nod in answer to his question. "It's fucked up but…" I say. He silently takes another long drink from his cup. "Damon…." He looks up at me, hopeful. Like what I'm about to say will magically comfort him. I don't have the answers though. I reach across the table and take his hand in mine. I lace our fingers together, trying to say that I am equally as fucked up as he is, but I think that's okay for now, as long as we continue to work towards being better. I think he understands because he squeezes my hand.

"In a zombie apocalypse, would you be able to kill me if I turned, or would you keep me around on a leash with my arms chopped off like Michonne?" I ask.

He drops my hand and shrugs, a smile growing on his lips. "Elena, I'd have no trouble killing you if you turned."

I nod and pour myself another cup of water. "Good. I can't imagine being dead and having my zombie self roam the earth trying to eat other people."

"Why won't you talk to your brother?" Damon asks. I open my mouth in shock. I thought the personal question portion of the evening was over. I guess he's trying to get me back for my previous question.

I can't stomach any more water, so I know that I have to answer. "Those two years I was clean, I was clean because I was taking care of my brother who was not clean. He was in deep pain after my mother died, and stopped going to school so he could get high and drunk with this girl a grade above his, Vicki Donovan. Eventually, he started getting better and investing more time in his school work, and was admitted to UCSD. When I was struggling and then caught, he told me to go to rehab. I guess I'm embarrassed."

"Can you be anymore vague?" Damon accuses. "What were you caught doing?"

"That's two questions and you still haven't drunk your water," I point out. "I answered your question."

He glares at me as he drinks his water. I'm pretty sure I can guess his next question, but he speaks up. "You're mad at your brother because you were there for him at a time he needed you and the moment you needed support, he wanted to give the responsibility to someone else. You have nothing to be embarrassed about, he should be ashamed of his behavior towards you."

I don't know if Jeremy or my dad would feel the same way. They did offer to pay for rehab before they kicked me out. I decide to let Damon's words go and get back to the game.

"How did you know where I was the other night?" I ask.

"You ran into a hotel, so I followed and got a room, hoping I'd be able to convince you to come back. I just happen to be walking in the lobby when I heard you sing something about the third one being thrice the price."

Oh, he was already there. So, he saw my entire interaction with Professor X. Damn.

"What were you caught doing that caused your family to want to send you to rehab?" he asks.

I take a deep breath and take another drink, avoiding his question. I don't even look at him when I drink, I stare out the window wishing I'd taken Damon up on his offer to drive me back to the apartment. At least there I can escape from to my room.

I cross my legs and drink two full plastic cups of water. I think I'm about ready to give up, but I don't want to loose. How do I get Damon to end the game before me? "What's the worst thing you've done drunk?" I ask.

Damon takes a drink. It must be pretty bad if he's unwilling to answer. "What's the worst thing you've done while on pills?"

I sigh. I have to answer this honestly, but I can't. Not right now. I decide to go with the shortened version. "You know the phrase, rock bottom?" I ask. Damon nods in affirmation. "It's usually followed by a tale of someone who needed that moment to change their behavior. Well, I took a pick axe to rock bottom. I could practically dig to China with the number of times I've hit rock bottom, and yet, I don't think that I've done my worst yet," I say.

I don't add that the reason I don't think I've done my worst yet, is because I'm still thinking about the pills I took from Professor X, in my purse. Thanks to Damon, I have enough in my bank account to take a break for a while and figure things out on my own.

Damon doesn't accept my answer because he stands up, annoyed. "How can you say that you haven't done your worst yet?" he asks.

"Are we still playing the game, because you haven't drunk your water," I say.

"Fuck the game, Elena," he yells. Good, because I don't think I could've had another ounce of water. I've officially decided that water is overrated. Except for the ocean, baths and pretty waterfalls. Oh, and the part where water helps things grow. Like apple trees. I probably shouldn't think about water right now.

"You're planning to fail," he adds. "By saying that you haven't done your worst because you need to hit rock bottom, and that will be your worst moment, _the moment that will change everything_ , is a cop out, so you can continue with your behavior."

I stand up and point my finger at his chest. "You don't get to psychoanalyze me. You can't even tell me your worst moment!"

He walks closer to me. "It's personal," he says, getting too close to me. I can feel heat radiate off of his body. If I moved my hand, I could feel his heart beat. I could splay my hand on his chest and feel his blood pump through his pulmonary artery.

"But I'm your personal assistant," I practically whisper.

He lifts my chin up with his fingers so I'm looking directly at him. "You are?"

I gulp and nod. "You have me at a disadvantage," I say, stepping back. Trying to gain breathing room. "I don't have a place to live and I don't have another job."

Damon seems a little too pleased with his powers of persuasion. "But there's one thing you have to understand," I say. Damon cocks his head to the side, prompting me to continue. "I'm here to help you, not the other way around."

Damon's brows furrow. "What do you call having a place to live, food to eat and a place to work?"

"Aspects of the job," I reply. "You hired me to help you and I will be your sober buddy slash personal assistant, but I'm not going to play anymore fake drinking games so you can manipulate me. You are not allowed to project your issues onto me."

Damon frowns. "I wasn't trying to manipulate you."

"Okay, Damon," I say, walking over to the table and pouring another full cup of water. "One last round. Did you come up with this game so you could somehow convince me to work with you again?"

I hold the cup up, waiting for him to take it, but Damon remains silent. "I'll answer for you." Even though I have to pee and am trying my hardest not to think about waterfalls, I drink the entire contents of the cup and throw the empty plastic cup at his chest.

"Yes, Elena," I mock. "I was trying to get you to want your job back."

Damon remains standing there, as I grab my purse and walk out of his hotel room.

XXXXXX

It's the first time I've been back in my hotel room for a couple of days, and no one has cleaned it because I left the do not disturb sign up, so the room is still a mess. Mini bottles of alcohol are all over the carpet, and the television is still on HBO. There's a peanut M&Ms wrapper on the floor, that I do not remember eating. My bra is strewn on the bed, meaning I went braless to meet Professor X. I must've taken it off while watching Game of Thrones.

I don't see my phone anywhere, and after looking for ten minutes, find it between pillows, completely out of battery. I look in my purse for a charger, but instead find the bottle of pills I stole from Professor X. And irony of all ironies is that it's methadone, the same bottle I took the day of my mother's funeral. I haven't taken methadone since my mother's funeral, refusing to go near the stuff. No one knows about that day, well, no one except Damon. He's the only person I've ever told that to.

I analyze the bottle and shake it. There's enough to keep me sane for a few days. Now that the secret's out, Damon is just going to have to understand that this is how I function. I'm not addicted. I am not an addict. I could easily get this prescription from a doctor, but I don't have time. It's perfectly legal.

But even though it's perfectly legal, I'm still staring at the bottle. If Damon paid for this, then he knows I have it. I'm supposed to be helping him, and I can't if I'm on something. Plus, there's work to be done on the school in Hawaii and I won't want to go for my run if I take methadone. I really need to go for a run tomorrow, it's been a couple of days. Is this my rock bottom? It doesn't feel significant enough, but I don't think I want to take methadone right now.

Before I change my mind, I walk into the bathroom and empty the contents of the bottle into the toilet and flush it. Right now, if feels good to not want it. I don't know if that feeling will last, but I'm going to enjoy it for tonight.


	9. Chapter 9: Between Future's Past

Chapter 9: Between Future's Past

 _"You have to make sure there's enough water in the machine," I say, grabbing myself a mug from the cupboard._

 _"Look at you, only a month at Stanford and you're already telling me how to make coffee," my dad jokes._

 _I walk to the fridge and open it to grab a pitcher of water, but it's not there. There's a couple of cardboard containers of pizza, some yogurt, old fruit, beer and ketchup. I open the freezer and there's nothing there either, except for the five lasagnas and casseroles I made and froze for when I was away at school, and ice cream that I bought four months ago._

 _I turn to my dad and really look at him again. Even though I we exchanged hugs last night when I arrived, he looks thin and older. His chestnut hair that matches Jeremy has begun to gray, and his slacks hang on him. He catches me staring at him. His eyes never lost that sadness. His wife died, but in many ways, so did he._

 _"I'm sorry," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've been busy and forgot to stock up for when you came back."_

 _I start cleaning out the fridge. "It's fine," I say, trying to find the expiration date on a container of yogurt. "I'll go to the store today."_

 _He bobs his head up and down, like it's taking every fiber of his being to be here in this kitchen with me and not lost in his own grief. "Thank you," he says. "You should know, Jeremy's been hanging out with Vicki Donovan again. Do you think you could talk to him?"_

 _Shit. This is not good. I will not allow him to fall back into old habits. "I'll drag him to the grocery store with me," I reply. "Maybe take him to lunch after."_

 _My dad fills his mug with coffee and sips it while I sort out the fridge. "I think he'll listen to you," he adds, digging into his pocket, he hands me his credit card._

 _I slip it into my back pocket. "How's the office?" I ask. "Is the online reservation system I set you up with before I left working out?"_

 _He shakes his head. "Carol couldn't figure it out," he says._

 _That's because Carol has been working in that office since Kennedy was shot. "I'll drop by and show her again," I say. "But you should really consider hiring another receptionist, just to help deal with the online reservations and filing."_

 _My dad shifts uncomfortably. I know why he won't get rid of Carol, because my mom loved her. Carol made my mom pumpkin pie on her birthday and soup when she was sick. "The office isn't the same without you. Carol misses reading the latest US Weekly with you on Fridays, when they were delivered to the office," he says._

 _I can't even smile, I just nod. "I'll be by after lunch with Jeremy."_

 _XXXXXX_

 _Jeremy swore he wasn't using again, but the redness of his eyes tell me otherwise. Vicki had officially dropped out of high school and was spending all of her spare time tempting my baby brother with various distractions. I should've been better about checking in with him over the last month. I'll ask Matt to have one of the football players keep an eye on him again. Matt's off at school in Irvine, but he should know a few players who are trustworthy._

 _Carol clasps her pearls and sincerely tries to understand what I'm explaining to her. The reason the program wasn't working, was because Carol forgot the password and didn't know how to reset it. For the past month, they'd gone back to taking reservations by hand and entering them into an online calendar._

 _"So, I set the keychain up so you'll never forget your username and password," I say._

 _"Keychain?" she looks genuinely confused._

 _I nod. "It's just program in the computer that keeps track of your usernames and passwords."_

 _"That would be helpful," she agrees. "Thank you for helping out today, dear."_

 _"I'm just going to see my dad before I go," I say, trying not to look at the mess of files on the desk. All out of order. I don't know how my dad finds anyone's file in that mess._

 _I walk down the hallway, past the standing scale and various posters promoting good health and knock on his office door before I enter. My dad sits behind a cluttered mess of empty mugs, papers and file folders._

 _The only thing that remains pristine in the disorder is his wedding picture. My mom and dad eloped and got married after they both finished the Boston Marathon. They wore Asics running shoes and Nike shorts at their wedding. The winner of the race, Robert de Castella served as their witness. Their impromptu wedding made world wide headlines and the cover of Runner's World. I love that story._

 _"I was thinking," I say. He looks up from his computer, didn't even notice I was standing there. "I can adjust my schedule at school so I don't have Friday classes. I can fly home and kick Jeremy's ass when it needs to be kicked, grocery shop and help Carol organize the office. I can update the online computer program from the Bay Area during the week."_

 _I look at him expectantly, hoping for a different answer than the one I know I'll get. "That would be great, Elena," he replies, relief flooding his face. "I don't know what I'd do without you."_

 _I try to smile. "It's no trouble."_

 _"Do you think you could get exam room 3 ready? Kelly just left and I have one last appointment for the day."_

 _"Of course," I reply._

 _I walk out the door and barely make it to exam room three before I break, sliding down the closed door and sitting on the floor. The realization that I will never escape hits me with such force, my hands tremble as I try to wipe away the tears that begin to fall._

 _Tears flood my eyes and stream down my face in a river of pain I haven't felt since I left for college. Beneath the tears, I see something. My dad's prescription pad sits on the counter next to a jar of tongue depressors and cotton balls. He's not supposed to leave it out, where patients could take it, or even staff. I get up to take it back to his office, but instead of returning it to my father, place it in my purse._

XXXXXX

"I hacked your Instagram account," Damon says when we reach a stoplight. We're on our way back to Century City, going directly to the office. Damon had a v-neck gold and black checked Rebecca Minkoff dress with a high choker and flouncy skirt delivered to my hotel room with t-strap heals. When he refused to stop by a Sephora so I could apply some makeup before we reached the office, on account of the store not being open, I told him I refused to go into his office sans make up. He told me I looked fine without it, whatever that means. Fresh faced Elena Gilbert is not an office ready look.

"It's not hacking if you clicked the follow button," I reply, trying to fix my hair in the tiny passenger side mirror. The fly aways are out of control. "And I haven't posted in a couple of years, so whatever picture you're about to make fun of is irrelevant."

Damon puts on his Ray Bans to avoid the morning sun. "I wasn't going to make fun of a picture, although the video of you singing Modern Love at a karaoke bar in K-town was memorable."

I shrug. "I used to be fun."

"You liked a photo of yourself from the same evening. You were passed out in a blue velvet booth, with a drag hanging out of your hand." He picks up his Starbucks and takes a drink. "Hashtag wasted," he adds sardonically.

I don't remember that. I usually stuck with pills, but I wasn't opposed to a hit every now and then. It's California. The shit's practically legal. "What's your point, Damon?"

I think I can see Damon roll his eyes beneath his sunglasses. "I was only going to comment on a photo of you from the previous year, riding a rail in Park City."

A smile creeps on my lips, and I turn towards the window, trying to not let Damon see that what he said brought back a happy memory. "First time I stuck a landing without falling on my ass."

I'd just moved to Los Angeles and got the job at St. Mary's. It was a period of time in the past seven years I wasn't on pills. Mainly because I hadn't figured out how to get them without my dad's prescription pad. I filled my time with running, snowboarding and surfing. Anything to distract myself from what I had just left.

"We could go," he offers. "I have a cabin in the Alps."

Of course he does. I wonder how many women he's brought up there. I think Brody said there were pictures of Damon and Pippa Middleton skiing. "It's almost Memorial Day. You have that pretentious Malibu party to go to."

"We have a pretentious Malibu party to go to," he corrects. "I was just bringing it up. I haven't been skiing in a while."

I glance in his direction. "Is this your way of making sure I'll stick around until Christmas?"

He shrugs with feigned innocence. I was right. I dig into my purse and search for a tinted moisturizer I know I have. When I find it, I cry out in triumph, pull down the mirror and start applying it.

"What's with you?" Damon asks. Traffic is at a standstill on the 405 heading back to Century City. There's probably an accident up ahead, or someone who doesn't know how to merge.

"What do you mean?" I reply, dotting the moisturizer on my cheekbones.

"You usually don't care about this stuff."

I turn to look at him, and he reaches out to smear a glob of moisturizer on my chin. I swat his hand away. "It may have escaped your memory, Damon, but I'm the gatekeeper to your office. If I look like an Disney Channel extra, no one is going to take me seriously when I tell them that they need an appointment to see you. Unless you don't mind Carey Tripp randomly walking through your office doors seven times a day."

Damon cringes. Carey Tripp is the assistant to the head of development, which is shocking because she lacks the common sense to know that it probably isn't a good idea to barge into the CEO's office while he's on a conference call with Tokyo, and then seeing that he's in a conference call, proceed to ask him the question you came in with. The only reason Damon keeps her around is because she's the daughter of one of his dad's close friends.

"How does makeup affect your ability to keep Carey out of my office?"

I sigh and close the mirror. He doesn't get it. "People at the office hate me, which is fine. I can deal with it, but I just had a rough weekend that I'm still recovering from," I motion toward my face. "And giving them a reason to not like me or think I'm not capable of handling this job is like willingly walking into a prison full of Walkers and not having Rick Grimes to back you up."

"On a scale of one to ten how tempted are you right now?" he asks.

Random. I throw him an incredulous look. "What?"

"You're right, you had a rough weekend, the first in a while. The desire to get lost in that cycle of destruction has to be nagging you," he pauses. "Maybe enough to take a couple of methadone before work."

He knows. His statement is so accurate, it's annoying. "I'm fine," I state with as much confidence as I can muster. "I flushed the pills last night. Hope X didn't over charge you."

Damon doesn't ask if I kept any or plan on dialing X the moment we get to the office, instead he nods. "I didn't pay for them, I was too busy saving you from a maxi dress."

Great, Xander either forgot because he was so pleased with the amount of contacts he made that night that he forgot, or is planning on collecting later. I am like 98% sure I didn't tell him where I worked or lived, because by the time I'd seen him, I'd quit. I think.

"It doesn't matter," I say. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure, because I can handle one day without you," he replies.

"Thanks, but I'll be okay. Besides, who else is going to keep the growing list of people you hate out of the office?" I get my iPad out of my purse and turn it on.

"I don't hate that many people," Damon says a little too defensively.

"The fact that I could get out my iPad, turn it completely on and open up a note taking app, before you tried to defend yourself says everything," I say, getting out my stylus. "Since we're stuck in traffic, why don't we go over the day."

Damon nods. "I need you to make a reservation at Cut for six at eight, tonight. Talk to Joseph, he's the GM and will make sure we have a private table."

I'm in the middle of taking notes, when I look up. "Wait, _we_?"

Damon grins. "Come on sober buddy, I need my PA there."

Dammit, I was looking forward to a long bath and possibly another episode of Game of Thrones with popcorn and wine. Wait, no wine. Yup, no wine.

"Who's going to be at the dinner?"

"There's a small tech company for sale. I like their concept, but for the price their asking, it wouldn't be worth it in the current market."

"I need specifics so I can accurately judge these people before dinner," I reply.

Damon side eyes me. "Young college drop outs. I think they're hoping to use the money from the buyout to fund another project. It's a social media platform that combines the accessibility of Twitter with the niche blog appeal of Tumblr, but with flexibility of layouts and a cleaned up tagging system, and the mass user appeal of Reddit."

I shrug. "Do you know what their side project is?"

Damon smirks. Oh, he has a plan. "Well, if they're young don't take them to Cut. Take them to The Pikey on Sunset. They make all their own cheeses and pastas, with plenty of vegan options, plus it's like the hipster crowd's mecca. Ironic hats and suspenders. Mustaches. They'll love it."

Damon takes another sip from his coffee and thinks over what I just said. "I know the people at Cut, that's why I take clients there."

His OCD must be kicking in. "Damon, you know I love Cut, but this is a different group. Cut will be too stuffy and formal for them. I can guarantee you they've already been to places like that by other potential buyers. You have the opportunity to stand out, by taking them to a unique local establishment. It'll show them that you don't care about the bottom line, but their company," I try to explain.

He nods. "Believe it or not Elena, I know what I'm doing. Reservations, at Cut, tonight at eight."

Not going to happen. He'll thank me later. "Fine," I lie. "Do you want me to go back to the apartment and get one of your suits?"

"I have a closet in my office with suits and dresses."

"Jesus Christ, Damon. I didn't realize that you were partying so much, you needed a selection of clothes for you and your nooner."

"The dresses are for you," he replies, cooly.

Oh. "So, we're sharing a closet now? Moving a little too fast, don't you think?"

Damon coughs into his coffee. "You need to make sure everything is ready for Memorial Day," he says, ignoring my comment.

"Everything is all set for this weekend," I pause, hoping I might be able to get out of it. I put on my most distraught and stressed out look, which isn't that hard for me to pull off. "But, after this past weekend, I really don't think I should go," I say, as innocently as possible.

Damon throws me a deadpan look. "You're going."

Dammit. I shrug my shoulders. "Fine, but you're not allowed to get mad at me for not socializing with anyone."

I can only imagine the type of people at this event. I mean, the hostess's name is Chelsea White, as in born with a silver spoon in her mouth, owns a rose gold Tesla, five of the latest Birkin bag and living off of Daddy's money.

"I don't care if you remain a mute for the duration of the trip, as log as you're by my side." Damon stops at a light and turns to look at me. "But I'd be willing to put money on the fact that you couldn't remain mute for longer than ten minutes."

He's right and I'm not going to argue with him. Just because I don't want to socialize, doesn't mean I won't voice my opinion occasionally. Plus, this could be an opportune moment to get funding and support for my school. Damon's company is paying for it, but he told me that I'd still need to fundraise, get investors and a board.

We spend the next fifteen minutes going over various items for the day, until we pull up to the office's valet and head to the elevators. It's still early and not many people are at the office yet, so Damon and I don't have to share the elevator with anyone. I feel my panic rise the moment we step in and try to take a few deep breaths without drawing attention to myself. I've been fine since those first few days, but it's like the weekend reawakened some old demons.

"Are you okay?" Damon asks. I can't even look at him, for fear that I'd give myself away. I just nod and clasp my hands around a brass bar that surrounds the elevator for people who need support when riding the car.

"Say your poem," he orders.

I shake my head no. I can't. I think I've forgotten how to breathe and my mind feels fuzzy, like someone stuffed cotton in my brain. The mirrored walls go all Inception on me and start closing in. Trapped.

I feel Damon close to me, he splays his hand on my back soothingly rubs in hypnotizing circles, while I try to regain my ability to breathe. It feels warm and nice, like his touch has magical healing abilities. Maybe Damon was a healer in a past life. Or a witch doctor. I don't think Damon would like it if I called him a witch, but I'll have to ask him if he's ever had his palm read.

We've successfully ascended four floors when the door opens for someone to enter. Realizing that our situation looks precarious, with Damon leaning close to me with his hand on my back, while I look like I'd rather be anywhere than in an enclosed space going up numerous flights, Damon removes his hand and takes a large step away from me.

The absence of his hand leaves me feeling cold and alone. The rush of anxiety comes back and I try to nonchalantly hold onto the brass bar while Damon makes small talk. It's a different feeling than before, because this is laced with confusion and rejection. I can't rely on other people because I will always be alone.

"What's wrong with her?" the man asks. I can't even look at them, I just try to focus on the marble floor, while I hang onto the brass bar for dear life.

"She had too much coffee," Damon replies. I'm going to kill him.

The man laughs. "Did you two have a late night?" he asks as if he knows something.

I feel distance between me and Damon increase as if he's now all the way across the car.

"No," Damon says. "She's just my personal assistant." I don't know why his words burn me, but they do.

"Come on," the man says, disbelievingly. "You don't expect me to believe you're not enjoying a little _personal assisting_ on the side."

Gross. Damon's anger radiates and hits me. I'm not even looking at him and I can tell he's pissed. "You're Ashton Locke, the assistant to vice president of media?" Damon asks.

"Yes, Mr. Salvatore. I've been working on…" he begins.

Damon interrupts. "I don't care what you're working on, Ashton, because you have no future at this company. I've talked to you for less than five minutes and I find you to be cocky, entitled and annoying," Damon leans over and presses the button for the tenth floor. "I don't care if you were planning on getting out at the thirty-third floor, I want you out on the next floor and you can wait for another car or better yet, take the stairs."

I don't look up from where I'm at, but Ashton leaves a few seconds later on the next level. When he's safely gone, I crumple to my knees the floor, still grasping the bar. Flashes of blood and screaming enter my mind and I try to quiet the noises by conjuring up my poem. I hear Damon call my name, but I shoo him away, not wanting him anywhere near me.

"If you can keep your head when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you," he begins. "But make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting."

"Or being lied about, don't deal in lies," I remember. "Or being hated, don't give way to hating. And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise."

"If you can dream and not make dreams your master," he says.

"If you can think- and not make thoughts your aim," I repeat, standing back up and taking a deep breath, in through the nose and slowly out the mouth. "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two imposters the same."

"You okay?" he asks.

I nod and wipe my eyes with the palm of my hand, not realizing that I was crying. Thank God I didn't wear makeup. "I didn't know you knew that poem," I say.

"I didn't," he replies.

His response surprises me so much, I glance up at him. "You memorized it?" I don't say for me, but the intention hangs there.

He shrugs his shoulders. "It's a good poem."

We hit our level and Damon holds the door open while I regain my balance and walk out. When I make it out of the elevator, Damon assesses me, straightens his tie and strides toward his office, leaving me in the middle of the hallway. I use reflective paneling on the wall to fix my hair before I follow in his wake.

XXXXXX

"Why did you order yourself the quinoa salad, when you know you're going to regret it and take a bite of my grilled cheese when I'm not looking?" Damon asks.

I smirk, lean over his desk, take the grilled cheese sandwich out of his hand, dunk it in his tomato soup and take a bite. It's so buttery and delicious, I practically cry, but instead I hand it back to Damon. "I am perfectly capable of stealing your sandwich in front of you."

Damon laughs as he dips the sandwich I handed him into his soup and takes a bite, while I ignore my salad. I honestly don't know why I keep ordering it. Damon and I are having a working lunch, but really we're talking about Harry Potter. Damon is a huge fan, something I only recently learned after looking in his library and seeing first edition copies of each book, signed by J.K. Rowling.

"People romanticize Snape's sacrifice and forget that he was basically an ass who was willing to sacrifice a baby and the baby's father to have a chance with the girl he'd been crushing on since he was eleven," I say.

Damon nods. "He was conflicted because he loved her so much, he couldn't imagine a life where she wasn't in it, even if she did hate him. I get that."

I shake my head. "I don't see it that way. If he really cared about her, he would've actively tried to stop Voldemort, not wait until the last minute, when it was too late."

Damon starts to say something, but a someone walks in. Damon quickly straightens up, his whole demeanor changing. "Damon, I was wondering if you had a minute," she says.

I spin around and see Carey Tripp and her long legs in the doorway. "Oh, Elena, I didn't see you there," she says. She walks in, not caring that Damon and I were in a meeting. "Your skin looks so young and fresh," she says, silkily. "What's your secret?"

I smile, trying to show her that her blatant rudeness doesn't affect me. "I wash it with soap and water."

Damon snorts and tries to cover it up by taking a drink of his soda. I pick up my salad and my notes and stand up. "I'll get the boardroom on the twenty-seventh level ready," I say, on my way out.

After I leave, I walk to my desk and see a manilla envelope laying on my computer keyboard. Weird, usually my mail is placed in my inbox tray, so I can organize it later. It isn't addressed to anyone. I open it up and pull out several pictures with a sticky note attached to the top one. "I found you," it says in scrawled familiar writing. It's like the floor beneath me disappears and I have to hold onto the desk to brace myself. For the second time today, panic takes hold of me.

I take off the sticky note and crumple it up in my hands, then I flip through the photos. There of me in Manhattan Beach at the bar. One is of Damon picking me up after I got tangled up with the girl in the maxi dress. One is of me holding up two pills and sitting next to X. Another is of Damon holding the bottle of pills I swiped from X with me in his arms. It looks... not good.

"What's that?" Damon says, from behind me. I try to flip the photos over and place them on my desk. Carey hovers for a few seconds, but leaves the moment she realizes that I'm not saying anything until she does.

"Nothing," I say. "Just some photos of potential spots for the school."

"You're a bad liar," he says, taking the pictures out of my hands. He looks at them and I see him go from curious to frowning to angry. "In my office, now."

Crap. Damon takes the photos and I follow him back to his office, trying to think of a way out of this. "When did you get these?" he asks, looking through the pictures and pacing.

"They were on my desk when I left your office after lunch," I reply.

"I'm sorry," he says. What? Why? "I must've been spotted in the lobby of the hotel and someone called the tabloids."

I have no clue where he's going with this. "Tabloids?"

"I have to stop this from getting out, if it does the board could argue that I broke the morality clause," he says.

"But Damon," I say. "You didn't do anything wrong. You were helping me."

He holds up the pictures. "These make it look like something else."

He takes his phone out of his pocket and searches through his contacts. "Was there a note with the photos? They must want something."

"No," I lie.

"Don't worry. I'll get to the bottom of this," he says, turning his back to me so he can make a call. When they answer, he says. "Eddie, it's happening again."

I walk out of the office and sit down at my desk. My hands shaking. He found me. How? He was supposed to be out of the country. I was supposed to be safe in Los Angeles, but I slipped up. He has a home in Manhattan Beach and seeing me with someone as well known as Damon, he must've put two-and-two together. I wish I'd never let Damon buy me water and take me to breakfast. I wish I'd never said yes. I wish I could take it all back.


	10. Chapter 10: Between Morning and Night

Chapter 10: Between Morning and Night

 _"Elena, I can't watch you do this to yourself anymore," my dad says. He's sitting with Jeremy in our family room. They're both on the couch, while I stand and look at them, completely bombarded when I came in after not being home for a couple of days. Only reason I stopped by was to grab clothes. I'm currently wearing Max's worn-out Harvard t-shirt and basketball shorts that I had to fold up just to fit around my waist; just his clothes, like he owns every part of me. It makes him happy when I wear his clothes, so I do whenever I run out of clothes._

 _"You should go to rehab," Jeremy says. There's a list of places to go to fanned out on the table. Even one of those celebrity rehab places that all the stars go to when they have "mental breakdowns"._

 _If I go to rehab, Max would just get me out and I know myself well enough to know that I'd go with him. I need to nip this conversation in the bud. "I'm fine," I say. "I don't have a problem."_

 _"Your eyes are red, you have dry skin and you're too thin," my dad says, like he's diagnosing a patient._

 _I stay standing, knowing I'll want to leave as soon as I have an out. "I've been up late studying," I lie. I graduated early, but decided not to tell my dad right away. My dad currently thinks I'm taking summer classes online, which is complete bullshit._

 _Dad looks to Jeremy, who suddenly sits up straight. "I saw you outside of the Costco in Mission Valley, yesterday. You were walking out to a black Maserati, carrying a prescription bag."_

 _I shrug my shoulders. "So? Do you have a problem with me being on birth control?"_

 _I achieve the desired effect, Jeremy grimaces. "No, but some guy got out, grabbed the bag from your hands, looked inside and yelled at you. He then took a couple of whatever was in your bag and pushed you in the car," he pauses and looks at his hands. "I would've kicked his ass, but it all happened in a matter of minutes and then you were gone."_

 _I only remember Max yelling at me for not getting a bottle of Oxy. I never got more than one prescription at a time for fear of getting caught, so I just bought the Valium and left._

 _"Should you, of all people, really be having this conversation with me, Jeremy?"_

 _Jeremy looks sheepish, and is suddenly quiet. Seeing the roadblock in this pointless intervention, my dad lifts up his prescription pad. "I found this in your room," he accuses._

 _Shit. "You choose now to step out of your bubble and play Dad?"_

 _"Elena Marie Gilbert, you cannot talk that way to me," he yells, slamming the prescription pad on the coffee table._

 _Jeremy uncomfortably shifts on the couch. "You mean speak the truth?" I ask. "You can't have it both ways, Dad. You can't expect me to be the parent when you decide to check out and then treat me like a child just because you're having a day where you haven't thought about your dead wife and realize you have two kids."_

 _My dad's face flushes with anger. "Where've you been for the past week? Who's this guy Jeremy saw you with"_

 _Has it been a week? I thought I was gone only a couple of days, at the most and they cannot know about Max. "You don't get to ask me questions about my personal life. You are not my doctor and you most certainly are not my Father."_

 _I can't allow myself to regret the words that came tumbling out of my mouth, because right now, I need this temporary fix. But I know I went to far the moment my dad stands up and points to the door. I don't even register the string of words he yells. I just hear "Out" and "Don't come back". I spin around and stumble outside towards my car, vowing to never return._

XXXXXX

Since my mom died, I can only think of a few periods of time that were just good. When I first moved to Los Angeles and started teaching, I was running marathons, surfing and snowboarding in an attempt to distract myself and in many ways it worked until it just didn't.

When I was in high school, there were three weeks when my father took Jeremy and I to Europe while he spoke at a University. Jer and I rented Vespas and explored the towns we stayed in together. After my mom died, dad had stopped taking me on his Saturday business oriented golf trips with the board of the hospital he worked with or potential investors for his practice. While on that trip, he and I did a round of eighteen at the Turnberry Golf Course in Scotland. We didn't really talk, but it was the longest I'd spent with him in a while.

Even though I'd never admit it to Damon, this short time I've spent as his personal assistant slash sober buddy has turned into something I don't want to give up. I'm building a school from the ground up, a school that I can run however I want. My life feels like it's starting to have meaning.

But now, I stare at my trembling fingers and wonder what the best course of action is and I can't deny that the safest and easiest would be to run. I can ignore the photos. There's a possibility that Max could be bluffing. He might have just seen me with Damon and figured out that I work for him. There's no way he knows I live with him, because very few people know that I do. It's part of our deal to keep that information on the down low, even though I was hired as a live in PA. Most people just think we've known each other for a while and live in the same building.

It's on the way to get Damon's 10 AM coffee that I decide to pretend it never happened. Eventually, Damon's findings will lead to nothing because Max has more money than Jesus and knows how to cover his tracks. If I bring it up, it'll just worry him and he'll fire me, or worse, he'll go looking for Maxwell Dalton and end up dead. Even though just twenty-four hours earlier I was ready to stay quit, now that I'm more sober I remember how badly I need the money. I've barely put a dent in the hospital bills and I need to save up enough to leave the country.

Yup. Ignoring the problem is the best solution. Giving Max any attention would only encourage him, and the only thing worse than him finding out where I work, is giving him a challenge. So while waiting in line at Starbucks, I decide to compartmentalize Max and hope he was just trying to scare me.

I'm in line at Starbucks, flipping through my emails when I get that odd sensation in the pit of my stomach that I'm being watched. I turn around and scan the store, looking for anyone suspicious. I just see the usual crowd of accountants, lawyers, PAs and UCLA students. I breathe a sigh of relief. I'm just being paranoid.

Suddenly, I feel a tap on my shoulder and I jump about twelve feet like someone just shocked me with a taser. I turn around and practically punch the person behind me, but he looks so apologetic that he scared me, I immediately feel bad about overreacting. "I didn't mean to frighten you," he says, in a British accent. "I just wanted to grab a biscuit," he says, pointing to a shelf with shortbread cookies and bags of almonds.

Unable to speak, I move out of the way so he can walk to the shelf. "As long as you aren't cutting in line," I joke and then mentally slap myself because _these_ are the words I chose to make me seem less like a psycho.

He turns to look at me, his green eyes furrowed in such confusion, a blonde lock falls above his eye. "It's a saying," I reply.

"I know," he smirks. "I've just never heard anyone above the age of nine use it."

"Have a lot of interactions with seven year olds accusing you of cutting in line?" I retort.

"Just one," he replies, standing in front of me, ready to put in his order. "My nephew."

I didn't realize he did it until too late. He turns to the barista and places the cookies on the counter. "I'll have an iced green tea, and she'll have," he points at me, prompting me to order.

I'm so taken aback, I give the barista my order. "A Venti vanilla latte with coconut milk and a Venti Americano with an extra shot."

She writes my order on the cup. "Name?"

He turns to me, his lips upturned. Clever. "Stark," I reply.

She writes the name on the cup and I move to the waiting area while he pays.

"Do you go by Arya or Sansa?" he says, standing next to me.

"Ned," I laugh. "Game of Thrones fan?"

"What's that?" he asks, sardonically.

"Oh, you know. This little show on HBO. Not popular at all. I'm worried it's going to get canceled, if I were being honest."

He chuckles. "So, when you're not being beheaded by a traitorous incestuous family, what do you do?"

They call my name. "Fetch coffee for the king," I reply, grabbing the cups. "Thank you for the drinks," I say, on my way out the door.

After I deliver Damon his Americano, I spend the morning writing press releases for Damon. Ever since he found out I enjoy writing in my spare time and keep a journal, he's been having me write releases for various news outlets. The latest press release is about the property in Tokyo he acquired. When I'm done writing, I research the company we're meeting with tonight.

Lumonox is a small company based out of the Bay Area. The haven't received any outside funding, because the founder, Ethan Ford inherited enough money to get them off the ground. They're comprised of all of his friends from high school, and in typical Silicon Valley fashion, their entire operation is based out of their garage. I looked over what Damon had on the company and their social media platform seems too generic. Yes, it's better than Tumblr and Reddit, but I doubt it'd have the mass appeal of Twitter. So, there has to be another reason Damon wants the company.

I'm deep into research mode when Damon calls me into his office, I presume to give me his lunch order. When I walk in with my iPad, Damon hangs up the phone and prompts me to sit. "Until we get the approval for the land purchase in Hawaii, I thought we should start actually planning the school," he says.

My heart leaps. It's actually happening. "I've already been planning," I say. "Can't we just move ahead with the building?"

Damon shakes his head. "I know you've been planning, but it's time for you to work with someone who can help you come up with an actual picture of what the school will look like. I usually would have you work with someone in development, but this is a special project, unlike one I've ever done before."

I nod. "You want something to show the board and potential investors or donators."

"Exactly," he says. The door opens behind me and Damon motions for him to come in. "Elena Gilbert, this is Noah Bolton, he's an independent architect from London and has worked on some of the world's best private schools and boarding schools."

I turn around to see a tall guy, lean and tan from hours of surfing or climbing. "It's Ned Stark," he chortles.

I snigger and turn to Damon, who looks betrayed. "You two know each other?" he asks, pointing at both of us.

"Not really," I reply. "He just bought your coffee this morning after he cut in line."

Noah dramatically mocks offense by pressing his hand to his chest. "Madame!" he says. "I'd never cut in front of a lady."

"You should be sent to the gallows for the amount of trickery that went on this morning," I joke.

He nudges my arm, resting his hand on my shoulder and gives me an exaggerated expression of innocence. "You'd have me killed?"

"When you're done joking around, I'd like to remind Noah that this is on a trial basis," Damon says, looking murderous. "It's of the utmost importance that this arrangement remains professional and productive."

Noah looks at him questioningly. "No where in my contract does it say this is under trial terms."

Damon steps forward, forcing me to move and Noah to take his hand off my shoulder. "You must've misread it. Hasn't anyone ever told you that before you sign a contract, you should read the fine print?"

Why is Damon acting so weird? Just a second ago, he was practically singing Noah's praises and now he looks like he has serious regrets. Someone on the board must've recommended Noah, or he's someone important's kid. The longer I've been in business world, the more I realize how much nepotism goes on.

One good thing about being a doctor's daughter, is there's not a whole lot of room for nepotism. Sure, he could've handed down his practice to me and helped me get into medical school, but in the end, I would've had to do the real work. Ironically, at St. Mary's there were a lot of cousins, sons and daughters getting preferential treatment over regular applicants, but the private school industry is just another level of the business world. So, I wouldn't be surprised if Noah is the result of some favor.

"So," I say, trying to break the tension that suddenly filled the room. "You worked on the

Ørestad Gymnasium in Denmark?"

They both turn to me like they forgot I was in the room. "I assisted on the project."

I knew his name sounded familiar. "I'd love to do something similar for the school in Hawaii."

"An open structure?" he asks, nodding to himself. "That kind of innovation would garner the press you need."

Damon interjects. "Wouldn't you want classrooms?"

"It's an open classroom environment with break out areas for small group instruction. I want a library surrounding the inside of the whole structure, and bleeding out into the school to form barriers between break out areas," I reply. "Ideally, it'd encourage collaboration between students."

Noah sits down and takes out his laptop and opens up a rough design. "This was for a school in Sydney that decided to go in another direction."

It's similar to what I have in mind. I point to the screen, "I don't like the rough corners around the break out rooms. I'm looking for more of a cylindrical vibe." I grab a notepad off of Damon's desk and draw a rough sketch of what I'm talking about. I'm about to hand it to Noah, but instead he gets up and leans over to look, placing a hand on the small of my back as he leans in.

Damon walks over and looks at the design. "It looks like a cloud."

I squint and look at the picture again, and then turn to look at him, causing Noah to drop his hand. "I'm not an artist," I say, a little too defensively.

"Obviously," Damon replies. "I refuse to call the school, iCloud Elementary."

"That's not a bad idea," I smirk. "We could probably get funding from Apple."

"Except then it wouldn't be a Salvatore International Properties school and you'd lose my funding."

"And you'd lose the lovely positive press you'll receive once we break ground," I retort.

Damon takes the pen out of my hand and proceeds to draw a rainbow. "Maybe I don't want people to know that I'm building schools that look like they belong at the end of a rainbow."

I embarrassingly snort, which earns me a warm smile from Damon. "It is where they'll find the pot of gold."

He leans in closer, causing my heart to skip a beat. "My gold."

"Cocky bastard," I smile.

"Fascinating work relationship," Noah comments, putting a halt to our joking and attention back on him.

I feel my cheeks flush. "I'd better get back to work, and let you two work out that contract," I say with unnecessary urgency, fumbling to get my things together. "Email me if you need anything else, Mr. Salvatore," I say as I leave the office.

Instead of going to my desk, I take the elevator to where Brody and I usually drink tea and gossip. The level remains unoccupied, so I walk through several hanging plastic drapes until I find a spot that overlooks the city and sit on a nearby metal beam to think. I felt like a ping pong ball in Damon's office and I cannot allow that to happen. Damon and I have a complicated relationship, to say the least, and if people find out that there's more to my personal assistant position, he could lose his company. It's fine behind closed doors, but we were joking around in front of Noah.

I don't even think he'll take on this position anymore after that, and he's really talented. I've been researching architects for the school before Damon hired someone, and Noah was on my list of people to look into. I had no idea Damon already offered him the position. No, I have to remember to be professional, which isn't going to be easy considering I spend a lot of time calling Damon a dick.

"What are you doing down here?"

I turn around to see Noah peering behind a plastic drape. "Did you follow me?" I ask.

Noah folds his arms across his broad chest and shakes his head. "No," he states. "I promised my friend that I'd check out the progress of the renovations."

I throw him a skeptical look. "Be sure to tell him or her that the renovations are on schedule."

He walks towards me and sits down across from me. "I followed you," he admits.

I bob my head up and down. "I know."

"Do you want to know why?" he asks.

I shrug and stand up. "Not really."

I start to walk away, but Noah grabs my arm to stop me. "I wanted to apologize. I shouldn't have embarrassed you in front of your boss. Truth is, I really need this job and Mr. Salvatore said that if you aren't content, I'm fired."

"You're not fired," I explain. "You just can't do that again."

"It's rumored you ambushed a meeting with the plans to build a school in an impoverished area."

My eyebrows raise. "You shouldn't believe rumors."

"If it is true, it's pretty bloody brilliant."

I look up into his gleaming evergreen eyes to see if there's a hint of sincerity or if he's just worried I'll get him fired. I grin because he seems true to his words and it feels good to have someone believe in me. "Breaking ground on the property in Hawaii will be brilliant. We just need government approval and about a hundred other things before that can happen."

He walks closer, closing the gap and smiles knowingly. "We?"

"I'll keep you around," I reply, taking a step back. "I'd better get back to the boss."

He steps forward, places a hand on my shoulder and leans down to kiss me on the cheek. "It was nice meeting you, Elena Gilbert."

My cheeks flush and I stumble as I once again step backward, barely catching myself before I completely fall on my ass. "Not used to those European greetings or whatever, I'm afraid. We shake hands in America."

"We shake hands in London too," he replies, holding out his hand. I just stare at it for an uncomfortably long time. Noah is intelligent, good looking, witty and he smells fantastic. This could be either the worst decision I've ever made, apart from other obvious bad decisions involving magical pills, or the best for the school, which is what I really care about right now.

I purposefully fold my arms. "I'll schedule a meeting with you to discuss the school next week."

I don't wait for a reply or another awkward confrontation, instead I walk to the fire exit and take the stairs back up to the office.

XXXXXX

Damon hates me. Real, true, fire breathing pissed off hatred. We're sitting at cramped table at The Pikey, next to the people from Lumonox. No one is talking, and I desperately want whatever cucumber raspberry infused vodka soda the Ethan Ford is drinking. I eye his fingers as he plays around with the glass, twisting it back and forth like a nervous twitch. Or an annoyed twitch, depending on how you look at the situation.

Our interaction is less awkward than that of the couple on a blind date sitting next to our table. They seem to be getting along swimmingly, I know because we can hear every word of their conversation and I'd put money on they guy's chances of getting laid tonight. His game is smooth and reminds me of how very alone I am.

Damon scoots as far away from the couple on a blind date sitting next to us, and nurses a glass of ice cold water. Judging from the anger radiating from him, he'd like to be drinking something stronger than h2o as much as me. The other members of Lumonox switch between awkward looks at each other and watching a chef in the open kitchen prepare homemade ravioli.

The thing is, I really did think this was a good idea and I'm determined to salvage this experience. When Damon realized that I didn't make reservations at Cut, he fired me. Literally. He called me an arrogant asshat, which only made me laugh, thereby fueling his rage and prompting him to say those two words everyone fears of hearing, "You're fired."

Then he gave me the silent treatment as we sat in traffic on our way to West Hollywood and rehired me after I refused to get out of the car when we arrived at The Pikey. But it wasn't an apology, he simply said, "You're rehired, now get out of the fucking car."

Surprisingly, I did get out of the car, but only because my stomach was growling. When we got to the reservation booth, it was apparent that the receptionist has not heard of Damon Salvatore before. She'd never heard of our reservation either. When I showed her my confirmation email, she used her perfectly manicured finger to point out that our reservations were for next Tuesday, not tonight. That's when Damon turned on the charm, transforming the prickly receptionist into a love sick teenage girl and she promptly sat us at the only available table.

The people at Lumonox arrived wearing the typical Silicon Valley uniform, skinny jeans, button up dress shirts underneath hoodies and Vans. Even Danielle Kim wore a similar ensemble, but her sleek long black hair, large dark rimmed glasses, and finger tattoos of html code set her apart. They seemed excited to be there, but Damon was so damned pissed off and negative about the whole evening that he decided being stand-off-ish was a better plan. So I ordered a round of fancy drinks, hoping that'd loosen them up, which really only earned me a glare from Damon, as if saying, _"So now you're going to taunt me with alcohol you know I can't have?"_

The guy on the blind date sitting to the left of me bumps my elbow as I take a sip of water, knocking half the contents down my dress. He turns towards me quickly, immediately apologetic, but in an attempt to dry off my chest with his napkin, knocks the beer he was holding with his other hand, all over my lap. "It's fine," I try to convince him so he'll stop getting handsy wiping off my boobs. "It's honestly not a big deal, I'm used to smelling like alcohol." That came out wrong.

Damon stifles a laugh, while the Lumonox people are outwardly laughing at my predicament. At least they're smiling, even if it's at my own expense. I excuse myself to the bathroom, and thankfully hear conversation between Damon and the group from Lumonox as I leave. Damon's probably telling them about the time I flew off the treadmill. I really don't care as long as they're actually talking.

After spending a good ten minutes attempting to dry myself off using the hand dryer in the bathroom, I arrive at our table. Damon is in a deep conversation with Ethan, while the others chat and munch at a charcuterie plate.

"The platform is faster than any other I've encountered," Damon says. Ethan nods and bites off a cracker.

"We developed it for other uses, but this seemed to be the most marketable," he replies. "I'll tell you what I told the people at Hamilton Investments, I don't want to sell it to some huge conglomerate, just so it can be destroyed by Ivy League grads that think they know what they're doing."

Damon looks defeated, maybe because he feels like he can't freely talk in a crowded restaurant. Completely my fault. I have to make up for this.

I sit down. "The name of your company is from Harry Potter, right? Lumos being light and Nox dark?"

Sitting next to Ethan, I see a smile grow on Cody's lips. "We've been to like, hundreds of meetings and you're the only one who's ever gotten that. Most people just think it's some computer term."

"I taught fourth grade, and we were in the middle of reading the third one before I left," I explain.

"Which part?" Danielle perks up.

"Hermione just showed Harry the Time Turner and you know it gets so good after that because there's a third of the book left. I wish I could've been there to finish it with them," I say, wistfully. I do miss that bonding time that happened while I read aloud.

"So why aren't you teaching?" she asks. "I'd have loved it if my teacher read me those books, even though we've all read them a thousand times."

I smile and point to Damon. "Mr. Salvatore offered an opportunity that I couldn't refuse," I say. Damon looks momentarily nervous. Probably thinks I'm still mad about being fired and will spill the beans on his issues with girls, booze and drugs. "His company is building a school in an impoverished area in Hawaii, and I'm heading the project. The first of many schools. He cares about people and what they can create. I'd love to collaborate on integrating technology."

Ethan leans forward. "What were you thinking?"

I shrug. "You'd think the market would be oversaturated with Apps for education or programs to help teachers, but there really isn't a lot out there."

They look at each other. I peak a glance at Damon, who looks annoyed and defeated.

Danielle takes a sip of her drink and nods at the other's, as if they'd silently had a conversation and were in agreement. "We'd love to help."

XXXXXX

Damon is quiet during the ride back to his penthouse. I lean my head against the cool glass and contemplate quitting again. I scroll through my phone and pause over Professor X's name. I can't ignore it. I tried and I can't. Max knows where I am, that thought alone has been plaguing me all day and I don't know if he's just trying to scare me enough to make me jump and make a mistake that will give him easier access to me, or if he's just trying to mess with my emotions by making his presence known, like the manipulative bastard he's always been. Like he's saying I'll never be able to escape his grasp.

I quickly text Xander asking him if he's in Los Angeles and wait for a reply.

The car stops and I sit up to look around. We aren't in Century City, we're in Santa Monica. The pier is still lit up, but it's late and not as congested so the driver is easily able to find parking.

I turn to look at Damon, who still wears the same expression on his face that he's had since he found out we were going to The Pikey instead of Cut. He's smoldering. Heat radiates off of him and I swear his eyes have gone from clear blue to cloudy. "Fancy going for a spin on the ferris wheel?" I ask, probably poking the beast.

He rakes me with his eyes, takes off his jacket and rolls up his sleeves, showing off his muscular arms. Damon gets out of his side of the car, prompting me to do the same. My brain wants to stay in the car because Damon is being an asshat right now, my body says otherwise. "Damon," I groan. "I'm really tired. Can't you just be weird at the penthouse?"

He whispers something to the driver, starts to walk in the direction of the ocean, and pauses, waiting for me to follow. I don't, instead my phone goes off. The Game of Thrones theme song blares loudly and my fingers stumble to turn it off, but too late, Damon's grabbed it out of my hands.

"Damon," I yelp.

Damon turns away from me. "Elena Gilbert's phone," he says.

Shit. I don't even know who's on the phone. I try to swipe the phone out of his hands, but Damon uses the moment to get me to follow him. "Professor X!" he says slipping his shoes and socks off, and leaves them on a bench. I do the same, I guess we're going to the beach.

Damon walks down a sandy path, with my phone pressed firmly to his ear. "We never had the chance to get acquainted."

 _Please God, if you exist, which at this point in my life is questionable, can you somehow get a message to Xander to say that I did not text him?_

"Did she?" Damon says, continuing to walk on the warm sand, towards the water. I chase him through the sand, trying to catch up. "Did she say where she was going to meet you?"

Damn you, God. I'm going to continue to not go to church and do non sabath-y things on Sunday. "She just wanted to know if you were in LaLa Land?"

I roll my eyes. Why does my supplier have to be such a sweet moron? "Tell me Xander, did you two ever…."

Xander must say something in response, because Damon stops walking and goes quiet. Shit. "Xander Portegies…" he says. "Yes, I know your name. I know more about you than you probably do, and I'm going to warn you, do not call Elena Gilbert. Do not meet her anywhere. Do not communicate with her in any way, even if she contacts you, or you'll spend the rest of your life getting legal drugs pumped into an IV and eating through a straw."

Damon doesn't hang up, he tosses the phone into the ocean. I run towards him and raise my hand to slap him. "How dare you throw away my phone and try to control my life!"

Damon catches my hand by the wrist and steps close to me. "I'll get you a new one, with a new number."

I use my free hand to hit him, but his hands drop to my waist and he flips me over his shoulder. I yell, calling him every profane word in my vocabulary, and slap his butt, which is very nice to hit, but it's no good.

"I'll sue you!" I yell, pounding my fists in his back. "This has to be illegal." Right?

He laughs incredulously, not dredging through the shallow waters, waves splashing at his calves. "Then I'll tell my lawyers about your proclivity for Vicodin. I'll even give them your friend's number."

"You're just mad because the meeting at The Pikey _was_ a success, and I was right."

And with that, I'm tossed through the air and into the ocean.

Here's the thing, I've always been a beach baby. So as I was flying though the air, about to hit the surface, I decided that the best course of action is to dive deep beneath the waters and swim further out from shore.

I hold my breath and dive beneath another wave as I continue to lap away from the shore. Warm waters envelop me, and I don't even care that my dress is completely ruined. It feels good to do something reckless, somewhat juvenile and probably dangerous.

I feel firm hands grab my waist and hoist me up to my feet, I can still stand, so we're not far out. Damon is completely wet and excluding the piece of seaweed stuck to his shoulder, he looks like a model for some exotic men's cologne, like he's intentionally swimming through the ocean, where the only illumination comes from the moon and the lights on the pier.

"What are you doing?" he yells.

"What?" My hands flail, I'm so irritated and I splash him. "You thought you could chuck me in the water and I'd come swimming back to you? I'm not like that girl I caught slipping out of your bedroom the morning I took this job, my whole world does not revolve around Damon Salvatore."

Damon stares at me like he wants to say something but is waiting for me to finish, so I continue. "You may pay me to make sure you stay away from bourbon and girls, but you do not own me. I can leave just as easily as I came."

I start to walk towards the shore, but Damon blocks my path. "And what would you go back to? A studio apartment, a job you hate, and a drug habit you don't want to kick?"

"Fuck you!" I yell, because I will never admit that he's right.

"Believe it or not Elena, we're good for each other," he argues.

My breath hitches. What did he just say?

"You distract me from a lifestyle I've relied on for far too long," he adds.

Oh, so I'm a distraction. That doesn't feel fantastic.

I cock an eyebrow. "What exactly do _you_ do for me?"

Damon rolls his eyes. "I throw away your phone when you're about to make a huge mistake."

"Admit it," I demand.

"Admit what?"

My eyes narrow. "You're mad right now because I was right about The Pikey."

"I'm mad because you texted your drug supplier," he yells.

"Really? So why did you take me here, because you didn't know about X until we already arrived."

He takes a deep breath and looks pained. "This is where it all started."

"Where what started?"

"Do you remember when you asked me when the drinking and partying started?"

I nod. "You said you had a sip of champagne at a New Year's party when you were thirteen. You were avoiding the actual question."

"I was," he pauses, thinking. I shift my feet, so I don't sink further in the sand. "It started right before my Dad died. He pulled me into his office and told me that he wanted me to take on more responsibility. Fly to locations in Korea, Germany and wherever he felt Salvatore Industries needed a presence. The job was already my life and I couldn't imagine the thought of one day taking over the entire operation, so I snapped. I came here, sat in a lifeguard stand and drank until I passed out. I was arrested for sleeping in the lifeguard stand and my Dad had to bail me out. The day he bailed me out is the day he amended the morality clause."

"Guilt is a bitch," I state. Damon carries his around like a twenty ton weight on his back, and uses other things to get help him temporarily forget it's there. I get that better than anyone.

A gust of wind picks up, causing me to shiver. "Let's get you back to the car," he says.

"It's so far," I groan and fall back into the water because it's warmer than letting the breeze hit my wet clothes.

"Hop on," he says, pointing to his back.

I look at him incredulously. "You want to give me a piggy-back ride?"

"Don't give me that look. Plenty of girls would love to ride this back."

"Ugh. Gross. Can I catch a venereal disease by hopping on there?" I reply, pointing to his back with my index finger.

"Fine," he says as he turns around to walk to the shore. "You can walk by yourself."

We're so far out, I don't see his car and I'm really tired. "Wait," I yell, getting up. He smirks and walks back. He crouches down so I can wrap my arms around his neck. He hikes me up, firmly holding my thighs in place. "Wet already Elena? We haven't even gotten to the foreplay yet."

I smack him across the head. "I can choke you from here!" I warn.

"I didn't know you were into that sort of thing," he teases as he walks through the waters.

With my arms draped around his neck, I lean in as he starts running toward the car. I squeal into his neck, holding on for dear life. He smells like Damon mixed with sweat and salt water. My insides curl as he hikes me up his back so he can hold onto me tighter.

I shouldn't be liking this. I work for him and he needs me to be a buffer between him and alcohol and very eager scantily clad girls, plus he threw me and my phone in the ocean and has been a royal jackass since this morning. I should tell him to put me down, but I don't. I let him carry me to the car where the driver is waiting with large towels. Damon sets me down, placing his hands on my shoulders steadying me. My eyes flit up to his, while he gazes at me and we stay like that until the driver walks over.

"Thought you two might need these," he says. I take a step back from Damon and grab the towel.

Damon takes a step forward and grabs it from my hands, opens it and wraps it around me shoulders, rubbing my arms. "You look cold." His voice sounds husky and labored, a wet strand of hair falls on his forehead with the perfect curl. I want to touch it and twist it in my fingers, instead I breathe a thank you, clasp the towel in my hands and move toward the car.


End file.
